


Why Do We Fall?

by An0nym0usWriter



Category: Batman (Movies - Nolan), Batman - All Media Types, Gotham (TV), Justice League (2017), The Flash (TV 2014), The Flash - All Media Types, Wonder Woman (2017), Young Justice - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Eventual Smut, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Jealousy, M/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-30
Updated: 2019-02-27
Packaged: 2019-10-18 18:02:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 25,204
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17585666
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/An0nym0usWriter/pseuds/An0nym0usWriter
Summary: Come with meAnd you'll beIn a world of pure imaginationTake a lookAnd you'll seeInto your imagination





	1. Prelude

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We'll begin  
> With a spin  
> Traveling in  
> The world of my creation  
> What we'll see  
> Will defy  
> Explanation

The very first memory I have is full of swirls of colors. Images I can’t quite grasp, moving at such a rapid pace. Heat searing across my skin from each brightly colored fragment speeding by. Not enough to hurt, but just enough to feel the energy there. Feel the connection.

It’s like I’m everywhere and nowhere. Everything is jumbled, like I’m grasping at the pieces. Desperately fighting to bring them all together, the pieces of the lights.

I take a breath, anticipating water to flood my lungs and sink me down. Each breath I take is hard. It’s slow and agonizing, the pressure threatening to split my chest open. I can feel the arch of my back tighten, my legs and arms spread out as if I’m hanging by a string only connected through my waist.

My head slowly moves, my eyes taking in the bright colorful lights. It feels like I’m stretched too thin. I am everywhere and no where all at once. I can feel the tether, the connection between the lights. So concentrated there, the gaps between each. I feel shattered, only still held together by the string holding me from sinking.

I take another breath, still no water fills my lungs. I can feel it all around me. The coolness running along my skin, a heavy contrast to the heat of the lights. My head bobs below the surface, the tingling sensation of the edge running lightly up and down my cheeks pulling my focus from the lights. I take a breath again, feel the water begin to fill my mouth, feel the burn as the air doesn’t fully reach my lungs, but I do not spasm. I do not react.

I hang there, held in place not quite floating, not quite sinking. Stuck in an in-between. I want to move, I want to reach out and touch the lights. I want to feel the heat against my fingertips. The water weighs me down, making my limbs to heavy to move.

There’s a tug on the string that holds my fate. A moment of something, something more than the constant agonizing flow of the cosmos around me. A moment where my head breaches from the surface, it bobs upward and I can see me, for just a moment. I can see the string that holds me in place. A bright white light holding me. I want to reach out and touch it, grasp it, pull myself up.

But the string only tugs for a moment and I drop back below the water. My vision floods with darkness. Empty and cold nothingness. My eyes widen at the hollow feeling, the moment lasting barely a second before I breach the surface again with a gasp. My eyes desperately searching for the bright lights. I find comfort in the heat against my skin, the feeling of being stretched too thin.

Its familiar, its all I know. I can feel pieces of myself in the swirls around me, my eyes focusing on each one long enough to see myself in each of them. I feel a tug again, I prepare to be stretched up again in a similar bobbing fashion, but it doesn’t come.

I fall, tumble in to the water with a splash, the string holding my fate suddenly snapped. Darkness envelopes me. Hollow and alone, cold and terrified. I reach above me, finally able to move and reach out towards the lights. I fight to reach the surface. The lights above me beginning to dim. I open my mouth to scream and reach out, fighting for the surface. I can feel the increasing weight of the water dragging me down like hands grabbing against my skin a pulling, further and further down. The weight being too much to bare, but still I fight.

There’s a moment, a moment of clarity where I feel the life leave me. I’m going to die…

I don’t know what that means, but I know with ever fiber of my being that I am going to die…

1 failed breath… I am going to die…

1 blink of my eyes… I am going to die…

_…I can’t let that happen…_

An ache in my bones for something more, I stretch out and tug on that feeling from before. The one rapidly leaving me as I sink further and further in to the dark. The connections between the lights.

I focus, reaching and reaching to hold on to that light. Darkness swells around me, lights almost gone, but I feel them. I can’t see them, but they are there. I forget about my breath. About the burning in my lungs. About the coughing and gasps as I try for air but only fill my lungs with more and more water. I’m falling faster, but still I hold on to the lights burned in to my memory.

The darkness rapidly closing, getting increasingly stronger. I see nothing. I feel nothing. I can not breath. My limbs grow too heavy to move, too tired to try and still I hold on to the lights. I let them dance across my vision in memories to fill the darkness around me. I let the memory of their heat burn away the cold seeping in to skin.

I pull and I pull, holding on to the lights. My eyes burn to close, but I will them to see. To see the memories of the lights. I can still feel them, barely there. I hold on to them, feel their pull as I sink too far below in to the water.

They stretch and they burn as they tear me into pieces. It’s agonizing, but it’s warm. It’s light.

They pull and they pull, but I hold on with all that I can. I let them pull me. Blinding white lights swirling across my vision, it burns with scorching heat. I feel a ripple across my skin, the final tug before I’m gone.

Then above, the water I see, the colorful swirls of lights.

I breakaway from the surface...

I breathe…

Weightless and free…

_And then I rise…_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song Inspirations:
> 
> Breakaway by Kelly Clarkson  
> Undone by Haley Reinhart  
> Flashlight by Jessie J  
> Rise Up by Andra Day  
> Innocence by Avril Lavigne  
> Carry You by Ruelle  
> Small World by Idina Menzel  
> Pure Imagination (Ready Player One Trailer)  
> Head Above Water by Avril Lavigne  
> Bird Set Free by Sia  
> Rise by Katy Perry


	2. Pilot/City of Heroes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Barry Allen awakens from a coma, nine months after he was hit by lightning and discovers he has superhuman abilities. It is the start of the adventure.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note that I do not own The Flash or any of the characters. I don't own a majority of the plot line either as it follows the CW show The Flash.

_To understand what I'm about to tell you, you need to do something first, you need to believe in the impossible. Can you do that?_

_Good._

_You see that red blur?_

_That's me._

_That too._

_There I am again!_

_My name is Barry Allen. I am the fastest man alive._

_My story is pretty simple. My whole life, I've been running. Usually from bullies. Sometimes I escaped, sometimes…_

_I did not…_

**14 years ago**

"Tell me what happened?" A woman with long red hair and a kind face sits across from a young Barry Allen, dabbing a cloth against the red on his face with gentle hands. She is careful to press lightly against the open wound. Fine lines dance around her kind eyes. Her head is held high, her shoulders back with an air of confidence.

"Those guys were picking on kids. Just 'cause they thought they weren't cool. It wasn't right." The boy, fearful of his mother’s reaction, spoke to the floor. He didn't mean to get in to a fight. He just wanted to stop the mean kids from picking on the others. His head is tilted down with slumped shoulders and sadness in his eyes. Defeat sings from every pore of his body.

"I know." The mother speaks softly. She smiles lightly at him, urging her son to continue and to not be so down on himself with just a few simple words.

"I guess I wasn't fast enough," he says with a heavy heart. All he wanted to do was help, but he may have made things so much worse for everyone. He couldn't stand up to a group of kids all by himself. He was too little, too weak compared to a group, too slow to get away from them.

"No," his mother commands with a strength that a little hope shines back in to the child's eyes. "You have such a good heart, Barry. And it's better to have a good heart than fast legs."

Before Barry can answer, the loud jingle of keys echoes from the front door. His mother watched as the worry crept back in to her sons’ eyes at the first sign of his father coming home.

"Hello!" A man calls as he enters their home, "I'm home." he says with a smile as he drops his briefcase on the couch, seeing his only son and wife sitting in the living room. There’s a small amount of gray gracing his temples.

"Barry got into a fight." His mother tells his father, a slight smirk written on her face as she glanced over her shoulder at her husband.

"Oh yeah?" Amusement dances through his father’s eyes hidden behind his glasses.

"And he won," proudness seeping in with the inflection of her voice.

"Ah, way to go, Slugger." His wife shoots him an amused glare. "Oh, and no more fighting," he continues with a smirk of his own, taking on an amused "Mh-hmm," as he leans over to kiss his wife hello.

Barry watches his parents with a smile. They speak a language with just their eyes that Barry admires. They were always happy when they were together, they were even happier with Barry there. The proof in the laugh lines that grew a little more every day. Even during tough times, like the other day when Barry’s dad lost a patient, his mother knew what to do to help carry that burden and didn’t need to speak a word to do it.

They spoke their own language, one that Barry could only hope to understand when he was older and hopefully speak with his future wife. Maybe Iris? He had a huge crush on her. She was actually one of the kids the group was picking on, not that he was going to tell his parents that.

_But after that night, I was running from something much scarier._

Barry startles awake to a strange noise that night. A sound of something tumbling downstairs. His brow furrows as he sees the water in his fish tank rise in to the air, weightless. His poor fish scrambling to swim back in to its tank. Water wasn't supposed to do that, it wasn't possible. It defied gravity.

He hears the crashing noises again, forgets about the odd water’s gravity and creeps down the stairs. His face resembling his fish’s.

"Henry!" His mother screams. The fear in her voice urging his footsteps forward despite the heaviness in his gut, his instincts screaming at him to return to his bed to close his eyes and wish the night away. Looking back, sometimes Barry wishes he had given in to his instincts, but he wouldn’t change anything. That night changed his life.

_Something I could never explain. Something impossible._

A young Barry walks towards the source of the noise keeping his footsteps light. He sees his mother on the floor, wind whipping around her. Bright flashes of red and yellow light spinning around her like she was the center of an electrical tornado, the lights jagged and sharp. There’s a crackle of electricity and cracks of thunder, but the only storm is inside their living room.

"Barry!" His mother screams, seeing her son turn into the room. His eyes were open wide as he stood there momentarily fazed.

"Mom!" His voice cracks louder than he intended.

"Barry, go!" She pleads with her son. His instincts are yelling for him to listen, but his heart keeps his feet frozen to the ground.

"Mom!"

"Get a doctor!" She screams, reaching for her child and feeling that something is very very wrong. The lights flash across the house, knocking everything over in its path. Windows shattering, the smell of fire scorching the room filling their nostrils. Wind making his eyes flutter close.

"Mom! Mom!"

"Nora!" He feels his father arrive behind him before he hears him yell for his wife.

"David!" She had tried to stand earlier, but the weight of the lightning moving around her was keeping her down. The force of it spinning and the strength of the wind. She clutches at her stomach where there is a sharp pain draining her energy.

"Nora!" he turns to his son, determined to get him to safety as his wife's eyes commanded, "Run, Barry, run!"

Bright yellow light swirls around him and suddenly he is blocks away from his house. The street light shattering behind him, raining down sparks that fade as they hit the ground.

"Mom? Dad?" he calls out, glancing around in fear. He races in what he hopes is the right direction home.

**9 Months Ago**

Barry jogs through the busy sidewalks of Central City. The work crowd busy hustling back from their lunch breaks. He’s carrying a multitude of big metal cases filled with vials and chemicals he needed for analysis at crime scenes. He was running late. He had over slept his alarm that morning, getting in late the night before from his trip to Starling City.

"Sorry," he calls out in apology to the many pedestrians that scramble out of his way with dirty annoyed looks. If he had arrived at the precinct on time, he could’ve hitched a ride with one of the officers, but now he was running through the city in the middle of lunch time rush.

* * *

"Second robbery this week. The teller ID'd Clyde Mardon as the shooter." Joe speaks in disbelief.

"What? Oh, geez, the Mardon brothers are back," a detective groans in to his coffee. "Didn't we already put those low-lives in prison?"

"Yeah, on a 10-20 stretch, which in Central City's warped mess, comes to two years’ time served." The detective rolls his eyes in annoyance, a grimace pulling at his mouth.

"What do we got?" The police chief asks as he steps up to the duo. He’s dressed fashionably, put together and professional in a nice clean suit.

"Perps took the bank," Joe speaks as he hands the chief images of the perps, "shot out the cameras, and as a chaser, killed the security guard over there. I got units kicking in doors of known Mardon brothers associates."

"CSI been over it?" The chief asks, already knowing and dreading the answer. He didn’t see the kid anywhere when he had shown up. He had dared to hope that maybe his conversation with the kid hadn’t gone on deaf ears yesterday.

"Uh, no," the Joe answers uncomfortably, his eyes shifting away from the chief’s.

The chief sighs, knowing this was the answer. It was always the answer. The kid had a habit of showing up late to everything. Clearly the conversation had gone on death ears.

"Where's Allen?" He asks raising his voice to be heard across the crime scene.

* * *

 

Barry bumps in to a pedestrian nearly knocking him over. "Sorry! Sorry." he calls behind him shaking his head. His metal cases flapping against his thigh and digging in to his knee painfully. He grimaces but continues on, fighting through the bruise he knows will be there later.

* * *

 

"You can't keep covering for him," the chief scolds the detectives. Everyone on the force had a fondness for the kid. He had been around for almost his whole life. It was hard being hard on the kid. He was one of the good ones despite his circumstances. The best CSI the force had ever had despite only being a technician at the moment. But he was always late.

"CSI! CSI! Coming through." Barry calls, seeing the chief and hurrying over.

"If he's not here, I'm gonna have to carry on this investigation without him,” the Captain murmurs. It wouldn’t be the first time, but it wasn’t something anyone on the force liked to do since the kid had started working for CCPD. Without him, the cases took longer to finish and often weren’t as accurate.

"Sorry I'm late, Captain Singh,” Barry says breathless.

"What was it this time, Mister Allen? Did you forget to set your alarm clock? Before you answer, I should remind you, the excuse you gave last time was car trouble. Wanna know why that one was particularly memorable?"

"I do not own a car." Barry admits grumbling. It was not his finest moment and he definitely was unable to live that one down. Everyone had laughed at him for weeks after, some where still laughing at him for it.

Granted, he was actually late that day because he had had a coffee date outside the city and missed his train ride home. Not that he was going to tell anyone that though.

"He was running an errand for me." Joe adds, quick on his feet. Barry glances over with wide eyes. "Barry, did you get me what I asked for?" he asks starring him down with knowing eyes. Willing the young CSI to catch on faster.

"Yeah." Barry looks like a deer in headlights for a moment. It would have been hilarious if it wasn’t in the current situation. "Yeah, I did. I have it right here," he fumbles inside his pockets and comes up with only a half eaten candy bar. "I had a few bites of it." Defeat hangs on his shoulders, disappointment on the detectives. Barry had never been a very good liar.

Barry looks over at the chief, seeing the knowing look on his face. At least this excuse was better than car trouble? He sighs and hurries over to the crime scene to get to work. He lays down to get a better angle for the tire treads in the dirt. He sees their width and height and direction as if the evidence is speaking to him.

"Getaway car is a Mustang Shelby GT-500. Shelby's have a rear super-wide tire specific to that model. Hmm, there's something else." He stands to get a closer look before turning to the second detective.

"Thanks," he says as he steals the pen out from his pocket, the man’s face stilling as he starred at Barry squatting down and running it through the dark substance in the tire tread marks. "Fecal excrement. Animal, I'd guess."

"My dad gave me that pen." The second detective deadpans, "Before he died."

"Sorry." Barry sighs, not as sorry as he hoped he appeared, the day just getting worse the further along it went.

* * *

Back in the forensics lab, Barry paces between his many machines. Their gears turning as they run all the tests Barry can think of.

It's just him in the lab now. He may be just a CSI Tech, but he was the ONLY CSI that Central City Police Department had, and he was the best according to the officers. No other CSI Tech was able to run an entire CSI lab for a major city all by themselves. Granted, no other CSI Tech would be willing to run the entire lab and not be paid or credited as the CCPD CSI.

_Bzzz... Bzzz..._

With a heavy sigh, his hands twitch towards the phone vibrating against his thigh. Barry’s shoulders sloop forward out of frustration when the phone gets stuck in his pocket. Before he could finish fishing it out of his pocket, one of his test finishes checking the DNA found at the crime scene. Flipping through the results, he groans at the familiar harsh faces starring back at him.

"Ok!" Iris chimes, walking in with a purpose, her heels on her short boots clicking across the floor. "I am ready to see this atom smasher smashing." Iris states looking lost for a moment over the words. She drags her heavy bag further up her shoulder, letting it swing behind her and knock into the back of her knee. She grimaces at the way her knee gives, but prides herself on not stumbling.

"There was a shooting today," Barry sighs, annoyed at the sudden case load and the confusion Iris was stuck in. "Your dad needs me to process some evidence. Which means I don't know if we're gonna be able to make it to S.T.A.R. Labs."

She doesn’t seem to be paying attention to his words. Too busy trying to move her hair away from her face without using her hands.

"Seeing this thing turn on is like your dream." She moans, grabbing a fry from his container left from lunch. "Your sad little nerdy dream," she grumbles chomping into the fry a little rougher than necessary. "Plus, I canceled a date for this.” Barry knows what that means. After weeks of begging her to go, she had finally relented and agreed which meant he couldn’t back out.

"Hands off my fries," he grabs them to move to another desk, but Iris just follows  and steals another dropping her heavy bag with a loud thud on the floor. Her nose wrinkles hoping that her old laptop survived but not worried enough to check it. "Unbelievable," Barry mumbles.

"I'm stress-eating over my dissertation," she tells him with a purposeful bite. "We started selling cronuts at Jitters, I ate two today. If I don't graduate soon, I'm gonna be more muffin-top than woman."

"You look amazing," he tells her with a roll of his eyes.

He looks away from her, momentarily side tracked about the slight pang in his chest over the crush he was still harboring for his best friend. It had lessened over the years, but had never fully gone away. Living with her for nearly a decade didn’t really help him fall out of love with her.

"What is so important about this particle accelerator anyway?" She asks, flipping through an article in one of Barry’s science magazines.

"Harrison Wells' work in quantum theory is light-years ahead of anything they're doing at CERN," he tells her with a smile. He was beyond excited for the event, but he was swamped at work at the worst time possible. Science was always fascinating to him. It was his escape from the pressures his life placed on him. It was currently his escape from the memories of his crush on the girl hovering next to him.

"You're doing that thing where you're not speaking English," she tells him starring at him like he is insane.

"Ok," for a moment he wishes it was someone else standing before him. Someone who understands and was as excited as about the particle accelerator as he was.

Barry stalks to the white board. Drawing a little dot, hoping to be able to dumb it down enough for her to understand, "Just imagine that that dot, is everything the human race has ever learned until this moment."

"Does that include twerking?"

Ignoring her, he draws a large circle around the dot, "That is everything we could learn from the particle accelerator. It's a whole new way of looking at physics. It will literally change the way that we think about everything," he smiles, his excitement seeping in.

"You gotta get yourself a girlfriend," She tells him, patting his shoulder. She flips her straightened brown hair over her shoulder as she rolls her eyes, turning to grab another fry.

Barry feels a twinge in his heart at the thought of his girlfriend. The girlfriend that Iris didn’t know about. The one he’d been with for 6 months. Iris is going to kill him for not telling her sooner, but he kinda liked having something just for himself, someone just to himself

"Hey, leave him alone, he's working," Joe growls from the doorway.

"Hi, Dad." Iris smiles, "Your testing is done," she mentions as one of the machines beep. She gestures to the general area, not bothering to learn enough to know which one despite the many hours she spends in Barry’s lab every week.

Barry walks around Iris to get to the correct machine to get the results. His pocket buzzes again to remind him of the message he hadn't glanced at yet.

"I think the Mardon brothers are hiding on a farm. The fecal matter I found on the street, it was cow manure, which contains traces of oxytetracycline. It's an antibiotic. There are only four farms in the area that still use it in their feed. I bet you find a very sweet Shelby parked at one of them," he speaks quickly and tosses over a list of farms that fit the requirements with their addresses included for the detective to glance over.

"Dad, seeing as how Barry solved your poop problem, how about letting him go to S.T.A.R. Labs?" Iris asks with a pout echoing the one on Barry's face. The detective pretends to be oblivious.

"Fine, go," he acts as if he isn't thrilled, starring down the reports. There's a glimmer in his eyes that screams fondness for the young duo.

"Yes! Thank you, Joe." The duo flew out of their seats to grab their bags and Barry’s coat.

Laughter following them out the door. Barry really did want to go, hoping for a great ending to his otherwise terrible day.

In the elevator, Barry remembers his phone vibrating in his pocket. Quickly fishing it out he sees the texts he had missed.

_From: Cass_

_Sent: 5 Minutes Ago_

_Hey! Bank robbery? :( Still go to S.T.A.R. Labs?_

  
_From: Cass_

_Sent: 2 Minutes Ago_

_No? I can bring dinner? Want me to meet Iris alone?_

Barry smiles reading the texts, his nerves jumping at the reminder of the plan for tonight. It was not the most ideal timing, but he really wanted Iris to meet her sooner rather than later. Quickly, he sent off a response, not noticing the odd stare Iris gave him.

Her arms crossed as she leaned against the wall of the elevator. Her eyes drinking in Barry.

_To: Cassandra_

_Sorry! Was finishing a few tests for Joe. Don't worry, I wouldn't dream of leaving you two alone just yet. ;)_

"Barry?"

"Hmm?"

"What's got you in such a smiley mood all of a sudden?" Iris asks, eyes alight with mischief.

Comically, Barry's eyes go wide as he struggles and fumbles his phone back in to his pocket. He nearly shatters it on the floor of the elevator. "Oh! You know how it is..." he trails off into a rant filled with big science words that Iris couldn't understand. She sighed, letting her eyes glaze over as Barry rambled the rest of the way to S.T.A.R. Labs.

Barry just wanted to distract Iris.

* * *

Sometime during their walk, the streets had become crowded. Iris hooked her arm in to Barry's to stay together. She could feel the tension in his body slowly rise as they made their way closer to their destination. She noticed him glancing at his phone every few minutes and then appearing to search through the crowd. By the time they had reached their destination, Barry was wound up so tight that Iris was beginning to stress out.

"So Barry, how was your trip? Did you find proof of the impossible in Starling City, or did you just make my dad mad for no reason?" Barry's eyes widen, visions of Oliver Queen and the Arrow flickering through his mind.

"Actually… while I was away, I had a chance to think about you know, relationships." He side tracked, hoping to stay clear of the conversation about Starling City, "and well, you said I'm not in one, and, you're not in one either, and you're my best friend, Iris." he stumbled out.

"You're mine, to," Iris says warmly, comfortingly almost. "Why else would I be here?"

"That's not what I meant," Barry sighed "What I meant..."

"I know what you're gonna say, Barry," Iris interrupted, steering them closer to the front.

"I'm not sure you do."

"Even though we pretty much grew up in the same house together, and we're kinda like brother and sister, because we're not brother and sister, it can get really weird and awkward to talk to me about girls, but I just want you to know, that it shouldn't be awkward. There is nothing that I want more than for you to meet the right person that totally loves and adores you for the amazing guy that you are."

Barry’s entire body flushed.

  
"Took the words right out of my mouth,” he mumbles.

* * *

**9 Months Earlier**

The night is dark. The city’s lights seem dimmer tonight. The sky rumbles and growls threatening to drop its heavy load. A blanket blocking the city from the outside world. The shadows of the city are more jagged. They reach out from their perches to claw and strike fear into their victims. There’s a heaviness in the air. An erie chill lighting their breaths as they scatter to empty the streets. They pull their arms closer, cast glances over their backs, jump at shadows, and duck their heads down to block out the night. Their hearts beat in their throats. Central City is cast in an air of danger.   
  
A woman sits surrounded by flashing lights and sirens. Her black hair drips dark droplets into a puddle steadily growing around her. Someone drapes a heavy blanket across her shoulders. It pools around her small frame, enveloping her in warmth.

There’s a man standing before her. His mouth moving to make sounds that she couldn’t understand. He wants to speak, wants to offer some empty words of comfort. He’s cautious, afraid to say the wrong thing.  
  
Theres more men dressed in familiar blue standing around the lawn of the building. They watch in solemn as a gurney leaves the run down building. A black bag strapped on top.

She stares as it moves slowly down the sidewalk. Eyes darkened and unseeing. A man moves to stand in the path of her eyes. His body language screams of concern that only a parent has. Yet she only stares through him.

The man sighs, flipping his notebook closed. He stands for a moment before her unsure. She can see the moment he decides to leave her presence before he actually turns away from her gaze but stays hovering within eye sight.

There’s a commotion near the doors of the building. It drags everyones attention away from where the coroner is placing the filled black bag. A much smaller man fumbles out with a silver case. Theres a passion in his eyes that many at the scene don’t have. His shoulders are pulled back with confidence, face set into the stone of determination.

He hops down the steps like a puppy. A brightness in the otherwise dark city. His eyes case the scene, finally settling on her. He trips over his own feet on his way to her, but rights himself with practiced ease, his body remembering the steps before he even knew he was falling.

Barry is 6 feet from the girl when a heavy hand clamps down on his shoulder. Spinning around he meets the sad eyes of Joe West.

“Where are you going?”

“I need to take some samples.”

“Give her some time, she’s in shock.” Joe sighs, his protective instincts dissipating.

“I’ll go easy,” Barry nods stepping back towards the girl. Joe looks like he wants to stop the young CSI from continuing on. His protective fatherly instincts screaming at him, but his job wins out in the end.

The girl sits on the edge of the back of the ambulance. There’s a paramedic busying herself in the back and periodically checking on her patient.

Barry steps closer, gently setting his case next to the girl. He kneels down, hoping to portray that he wasn’t a threat and to offer some calmness rather than having another person standing over her.

His brow furrows at the puddle of black around her. Glancing up, he sees the ink dripping from her black hair and revealing a lighter tone. He takes a steady breath and nods at the watchful eyes behind her.

“Hi there. I’m Barry Allen, CSI Tech. I need to take some samples if you are okay with it.” He pauses, waiting for some sort of reaction or response. The girl gives none. Blank dark eyes stare straight ahead into nothingness.

“Okay then, well, um.. Do you mind?” he gestures to where her hand holds the blanket close. His fingers gently brush against her knuckles after no response.

A strange warmth echoes up his arm like a shock wave of energy against the chill of the air. His body tilts slightly, his eyes fluttering from the strange sensation. Her eyes snap up to his. Her body tightens like a cat moments before it pounces. Dark eyes boring in to his. For a moment, Barry is afraid. Something about her dark eyes unsettling him. Like she can see into his soul. Much like a cat, waiting for the perfect opportunity to pounce, she doesn’t back away.

He swallows the fear down and presses his hand a little firmer, but still gentle. This seems like the wrong move as her eyes darken impossibly more. Her body tilts towards his out of anger. Barry can see a ripple run through her body, like a coil preparing to spring. He doesn’t move and doesn’t look away.

“I just need to check your fingernails,” he whispers. For a moment, Barry thinks that she didn’t understand him or didn’t hear him. But then her head tilts like her ears had picked up something his hadn’t. He swallows, still frozen in place.

After a long moment, her fingers twitch. They slide open just enough for his to fall through. He lets out the breath he didn’t know he was holding and curls his fingers around hers. She doesn’t react.

Barry gives a half smile that he hopes comes across as reassuring and adds a little more pressure to her fingers. Giving a gentle squeeze, he loosens his grip and pulls. She doesn’t react, but her eyes unfocus from him.

Barry stands there holding her fingers, unsure of what his next move should be. He glances towards the paramedic for help, but finds none. She is watching the interaction with wide eyes. He glances around instead, but everyone around them is shocked as well.

There’s a tightness around his fingers. He turns back to face the girl in front of him. She is still starring through him but her hand lets go of the blanket and goes limp. Barry takes a chance and pulls it toward him. She goes easily.

Her eyes seem to focus on him then. She watches as he pulls from under her finger nails. He takes many samples under her watchful eyes. It’s silent between the two, but not awkward. The paramedic watches, no longer pretending to do busy work in the back as the two interact without words. Their bodies moving in an impossible synchronized dance.

“Last one,” he whispers again. The air between them almost heavy due to the circumstances of their interaction. She only stares at him in response, letting him manipulate her hands without question.

“All done,” he packs up his things and stands to step away. His mouth opens and shuts, his mind unable to come up with the words to say. After a long moment, he nods and turns away.

There’s a weight on his arm, pulling him back. He turns to find bright electric blue eyes.

“Cass.” That is all she says before letting go to pull her blanket closer. Her eyes darkened again and starring into nothing. Her face guarded and impossible to read.

Barry stands shocked at the melody of her voice coupled with the roughness from misuse.

“Cass,” he whispers.

* * *

 

**Present**

"Aw! Aren't you glad I know you so well?" Barry hums in response, glancing across the room again. There were a lot of people here, a lot of people with cameras. It made Barry a little worried that she wouldn't be able to find them.

"Thank you." The crowd cheered as Harrison Wells finally took the stage and Barry began to focus, distracted from the worry that his duo was still a duo.

"My name is Harrison Wells. Tonight, the future begins. The work my team and I will do here will change our understanding of physics. Will bring about advancements in power, advancements in medicine, and trust me that future will be here faster than you think."

The crowd cheers as Iris feels a bump against her shoulder followed by the lose of a heavy weight.

"Ow! Hey, my laptop! It's got my dissertation!" She yells out. Many viewers around them turn to see the commotion. Many shooting glares for interrupting, but a few looking on in curiosity. No one moves to help.

Barry does though. Barry races after the thief with slow steps.

"I'm sorry." he calls behind him as he almost knocks a couple over during his pursuit. He pauses against a corner, breathing heavily, before taking off again to finally catch up to the thief. "All right, kid, you don't have to do this, all right? Just give me back my friend's bag, and we'll call it even. Ok?" The thief reaches forward like he is going to give in but shoves the bag roughly in to Barry's stomach causing him to follow over in pain.

"Barry!" Iris calls racing over, "Are you ok?" her heels clicking with unsure steps. Evidence that Iris did not run in heels very often and didn’t have the calf strength to be able to run in them now.

"Yeah," he says breathless. The thief turns, leaping over the fence, running right in to the light of another cop.

"Freeze! Police! Or do you want to find out the hard way you're not faster than a bullet?"

"Barry?" He hears a soft voice calling out. His eyes shoot over to the origin of the voice, finding comfort and dread in the image before him, the familiar dark black hair tumbling down her back in soft curls. Everything stopped, like she was the only thing in the world he could focus on in that moment. Maybe the blood rushing out of his nose was getting to him because he saw stars dancing around her.

She took careful steps towards him. Worry written on her face and in the bite of her lip.

Iris glanced over at the newcomer in confusion. The girl seemed to know Barry well, very well, based on her reaction. Iris knew all of Barry’s friends because they were all her friends. She didn’t know this girl.

She looked down at Barry, surprise rippling over her features at the sight of Barry focused entirely on her. She felt a twinge of something inside, something dark and green at the look Barry was giving this newcomer. It twisted in her gut and dragged her mood further down an unknown dark path.

She was beyond beautiful. Like an exotic animal that screamed danger, but was so beautiful that you couldn’t help but stare at her. Iris could see everyone around her giving her a second glance as she passed by. Maybe the ethereal air she had around her? Like shinning stars that made her glow like an angel. Iris didn't like it.

She was relatively short. Not as short as Iris was. She appeared to be just a hair taller than Iris. However, she was wearing black thigh-high boots with a lower heel height than Iris’s ankle boots, making them almost the same height. She wore a dark gray sweater dress. One of those oversized styles that hid her figure, but left her thighs bare. Thighs that flexed with more defined muscles than on the athletes at the gym Iris went to once a week. The sweater reached down to her forearms.

It was probably the sexiest sweater dress Iris had ever seen and barely any skin or body outline was showing. There was a softness to her features, a delicate set about her face making her to appear sweet. Her honey skin was bare, almost glowing a light shade of gold. She could have been thought of as Asian if it wasn't for the eyes.

They were large and bright electric blue framed with dark eyelashes. With the contrast between her black hair and honey gold skin, the eyes were so bright that they were the one thing you couldn't look away from once you saw it. The softness present everywhere else, was not present here. Her eyes were not innocent, they could see through your soul.

"Barr?"

"Hey... Cass..." Barry grimaced at her raised eyebrows, "Iris, this is Cass, my...um... girlfriend." Iris's jaw dropped.

* * *

Back in the forensics lab, Barry paces between his many machines. Their gears turning as they run all the tests Barry can think of.

It's just him in the lab now. He may be just a CSI Tech, but he was the ONLY CSI that Central City Police Department had, and he was the best apparently. No other CSI Tech was able to run an entire CSI lab for a major city all by themselves. Granted, no other CSI Tech would be willing to run the entire lab and not be paid or credited as the CCPD CSI.

Bzzz

With a heavy sigh, his hands twitch towards the phone vibrating against his thigh. Barry’s shoulders sloop forward out of frustration when the phone gets stuck in his pocket. Before he could finish fishing it out of his pocket, one of his test finishes checking the DNA found at the crime scene. Flipping through the results with a groan at the familiar harsh faces starring back at him.

"Ok!" Iris chimes, walking in with a purpose, her heels on her short boots clicking across the floor. "I am ready to see this atom smasher smashing." Iris states looking lost for a moment over the words. She drags her heavy bag further up her shoulder, letting it swing behind her and knock into the back of her knee. She grimaces at the way her knee gives, but prides herself on not stumbling.

"There was a shooting today," Barry sighs, annoyed at the sudden case load and the confusion Iris was stuck in. "Your dad needs me to process some evidence. Which means I don't know if we're gonna be able to make it to S.T.A.R. Labs."

She doesn’t seem to be paying attention to his words. Too busy trying to move her hair away from her face without using her hands.

"Seeing this thing turn on is like your dream." She moans, grabbing a fry from his container left from lunch. "Your sad little nerdy dream," she grumbles chomping into the fry a little rougher than necessary. "Plus, I canceled a date for this.” Barry knows what that means. After weeks of begging her to go, she had finally relented and agreed which meant he couldn’t back out.

"Hands off my fries," he grabs them to move to another desk, but Iris just follows him and steals another dropping her heavy bag with a loud thud on the floor. Her nose wrinkles hoping that her old laptop survived but not worried enough to check it. "Unbelievable," Barry mumbles.

"I'm stress-eating over my dissertation," she tells him with a purposeful bite. "We started selling cronuts at Jitters, I ate two today. If I don't graduate soon, I'm gonna be more muffin-top than woman."

"You look amazing," he tells her with a roll of his eyes.

He looks away from her, momentarily side tracked about the slight pang in his chest over the crush he was still harboring for his best friend. It had lessened over the years, but had never fully gone away. Living with her for nearly a decade didn’t really help him fall out of love with her.

"What is so important about this particle accelerator anyway?" She asks, flipping through an article in one of Barry’s science magazines.

"Harrison Wells' work in quantum theory is light-years ahead of anything they're doing at CERN," he tells her with a smile. He was beyond excited for the event, but he was swamped at work at the worst time. Science was always fascinating to him. It was his escape from the pressures his life placed on him. It was currently his escape from the memories of his crush on the girl hovering next to him.

"You're doing that thing where you're not speaking English," she tells him starring at him like he is insane.

"Ok," for a moment he wishes it was someone else standing before him. Someone who understands and was as excited as about the particle accelerator as he was.

Barry stalks to the white board. Drawing a little dot, hoping to be able to dumb it down enough for her to understand, "Just imagine that that dot, is everything the human race has ever learned until this moment."

"Does that include twerking?"

Ignoring her, he draws a large circle around the dot, "That is everything we could learn from the particle accelerator. It's a whole new way of looking at physics. It will literally change the way that we think about everything," he smiles, his excitement seeping in.

"You gotta get yourself a girlfriend," She tells him, patting his shoulder. She flips her straightened brown hair over her shoulder as she rolls her eyes, turning to grab another fry.

Barry feels a twinge in his heart at the thought of his girlfriend. The girlfriend that Iris didn’t know about. The one he’d been with for 6 months. Iris is going to kill him for not telling her sooner, but he kinda liked having something just for himself, just to himself

"Hey, leave him alone, he's working," Joe growls from the doorway.

"Hi, Dad." Iris smiles, "Your testing is done," she mentions as one of the machines beep. She gestures to the general area, not bothering to learn enough to know which one despite the many hours she spends in Barry’s lab every week.

Barry walks around Iris to get to the correct machine to get the results. His pocket buzzes again to remind him of the message he hadn't glanced at yet.

"I think the Mardon brothers are hiding on a farm. The fecal matter I found on the street, it was cow manure, which contains traces of oxytetracycline. It's an antibiotic. There are only four farms in the area that still use it in their feed. I bet you find a very sweet Shelby parked at one of them," he speaks quickly and tosses over a list of farms that fit the requirements with their addresses included for the detective to glance over.

"Dad, seeing as how Barry solved your poop problem, how about letting him go to S.T.A.R. Labs?" Iris asks with a pout echoing the one on Barry's face. The detective pretends to be oblivious.

"Fine, go," he acts as if he isn't thrilled, starring down the reports. Theres a glimmer in his eyes that screams fondness for the young duo.

"Yes! Thank you, Joe." The duo flew out of their seats to grab their bags and Barry’s coat.

Laughter following them out the door. Barry really did want to go, hoping for a great ending to his otherwise terrible day.

In the elevator, Barry remembers his phone vibrating in his pocket. Quickly fishing it out he sees the texts he had missed.

From: Cassandra

Sent: 5 Minutes Ago

Hey! Bank robbery? :( Still go to S.T.A.R. Labs?

  
From: Cassandra

Sent: 2 Minutes Ago

No? I can bring dinner? Want me to meet Iris alone?

Barry smiles reading the texts, his nerves jumping at the reminder of the plan for tonight. It was not the most ideal timing, but he really wanted Iris to meet her sooner rather than later. Quickly, he sent off a response, not noticing the odd stare Iris gave him.

Her arms crossed as she leaned against the wall of the elevator. Her eyes drinking in Barry.

To: Cassandra

Sorry! Was finishing a few tests for Joe. Don't worry, I wouldn't dream of leaving you two alone just yet. ;)

"Barry?"

"Hmm?"

"What's got you in such a smiley mood all of a sudden?" Iris asks, eyes alight with mischief.

Comically, Barry's eyes go wide as he struggles and fumbles his phone back in to his pocket. He nearly shatters it on the floor of the elevator. "Oh! You know how it is..." he trails off into a rant filled with big science words that Iris couldn't understand. She sighed, letting her eyes glaze over as Barry rambled the rest of the way to S.T.A.R. Labs.

Barry just wanted to distract Iris.

Cass headed to the particle accelerator

Sometime during their walk, the streets had become crowded. Iris hooked her arm in to Barry's to stay together. She could feel the tension in his body slowly rise as they made their way closer to their destination. She noticed him glancing at his phone every few minutes and then appearing to search through the crowd. By the time they had reached their destination, Barry was wound up so tight that Iris was beginning to stress out.

"So Barry, how was your trip? Did you find proof of the impossible in Starling City, or did you just make my dad mad for no reason?" Barry's eyes widen, visions of Oliver Queen and the Arrow flickering through his mind.

"Actually… while I was away, I had a chance to think about you know, relationships." He side tracked, hoping to stay clear of the conversation about Starling City, "and well, you said I'm not in one, and, you're not in one either, and you're my best friend, Iris." he stumbled out.

"You're mine, to," Iris says warmly, comfortingly almost. "Why else would I be here?"

"That's not what I meant," Barry sighed "What I meant..."

"I know what you're gonna say, Barry," Iris interrupted, steering them closer to the front.

"I'm not sure you do."

"Even though we pretty much grew up in the same house together, and we're kinda like brother and sister, because we're not brother and sister, it can get really weird and awkward to talk to me about girls, but I just want you to know, that it shouldn't be awkward. There is nothing that I want more than for you to meet the right person that totally loves and adores you for the amazing guy that you are."

Barry’s entire body flushed.  
"Took the words right out of my mouth,” he mumbles.

Meeting Cass

"Aw! Aren't you glad I know you so well?" Barry hums in response, glancing across the room again. There were a lot of people here, a lot of people with cameras. It made Barry a little worried that she wouldn't be able to find them.

"Thank you." The crowd cheered as Harrison Wells finally took the stage and Barry began to focus, distracted from the worry that his duo was still a duo.

"My name is Harrison Wells. Tonight, the future begins. The work my team and I will do here will change our understanding of physics. Will bring about advancements in power, advancements in medicine, and trust me that future will be here faster than you think."

The crowd cheers as Iris feels a bump against her shoulder followed by the lose of a heavy weight.

"Ow! Hey, my laptop! It's got my dissertation!" She yells out. Many viewers around them turn to see the commotion. Many shooting glares for interrupting, but a few looking on in curiosity. No one moves to help.

Barry does though. Barry races after the thief with slow steps.

"I'm sorry." he calls behind him as he almost knocks a couple over during his pursuit. He pauses against a corner, breathing heavily, before taking off again to finally catch up to the thief. "All right, kid, you don't have to do this, all right? Just give me back my friend's bag, and we'll call it even. Ok?" The thief reaches forward like he is going to give in but shoves the bag roughly in to Barry's stomach causing him to follow over in pain.

"Barry!" Iris calls racing over, "Are you ok?" her heels clicking with unsure steps. Evidence that Iris did not run in heels very often and didn’t have the calf strength to be able to run in them now.

"Yeah," he says breathless. The thief turns, leaping over the fence, running right in to the light of another cop.

"Freeze! Police! Or do you want to find out the hard way you're not faster than a bullet?"

"Barry?" He hears a soft voice calling out. His eyes shoot over to the origin of the voice, finding comfort and dread in the image before him, the familiar dark black hair tumbling down her back in soft curls. Everything stopped, like she was the only thing in the world he could focus on in that moment. Maybe the blood rushing out of his nose was getting to him because he saw stars dancing around her.

She took careful steps towards him. Worry written on her face and in the bite of her lip.

Iris glanced over at the newcomer in confusion. The girl seemed to know Barry well, very well, based on her reaction. Iris knew all of Barry’s friends because they were all her friends. She didn’t know this girl.

She looked down at Barry, surprise rippling over her features at the sight of Barry focused entirely on her. She felt a twinge of something inside, something dark and green at the look Barry was giving this newcomer. It twisted in her gut and dragged her mood further down an unknown dark path.

She was beyond beautiful. Like an exotic animal that screamed danger, but was so beautiful that you couldn’t help but stare at her. Iris could see everyone around her giving her a second glance as she passed by. Maybe the ethereal air she had around her? Like shinning stars that made her glow like an angel. Iris didn't like it.

She was relatively short. Not as short as Iris was. She appeared to be just a hair taller than Iris. However, she was wearing black thigh-high boots with a lower heel height than Iris’s ankle boots, making them almost the same height. She wore a dark gray sweater dress. One of those oversized styles that hid her figure, but left her thighs bare. Thighs that flexed with more defined muscles than on the athletes at the gym Iris went to once a week. The sweater reached down to her forearms.

It was probably the sexiest sweater dress Iris had ever seen and barely any skin or body outline was showing. There was a softness to her features, a delicate set about her face making her to appear sweet. Her honey skin was bare, almost glowing a light shade of gold. She could have been thought of as Asian if it wasn't for the eyes.

They were large and bright electric blue framed with dark eyelashes. With the contrast between her black hair and honey gold skin, the eyes were so bright that they were the one thing you couldn't look away from once you saw it. The softness present everywhere else, was not present here. Her eyes were not innocent, they could see through your soul.

"Barr?"

"Hey... Cass..." Barry grimaced at her raised eyebrows, "Iris, this is Cass, my...um... girlfriend." Iris's jaw dropped.

* * *

 

"Who is that guy, and what is he so proud of?" Iris asked. She was glaring at the man across the precinct but it was directed at the way Cass and Barry were sitting. Barry was sitting next to Joe's desk. Cass was holding tissues to his bleeding nose from her perch against the edge of Joe’s desk. Her legs crossed between Barry’s knees. It almost looked like she was sitting on his lap. "So, he caught a mugger." They were looking in each other’s eyes, speaking a conversation of no words. Something Barry's parents used to do that Iris desperately wanted and knew Barry did too.

"He's a transfer from Keystone. Started a few weeks ago." Barry said around the tissues, a little nasally from the swollen red nose.

"Eddie Thawne," Cass supplied earning twin looks of confusion, "worked with my brother," she shrugged after a moment of hesitation.

"Oh, that's Detective Pretty Boy." Iris says contemplatively. Her tone changing from annoyed to contemplative, "That's what my dad calls him. Says he actually keeps score when it comes to arrests," she rolls her eyes at the last bit. Cass smiles slightly, remembering who he picked that habit up from. "He is pretty though."

Cass glances over, assessing the detective with long looks up and down his body, "mm-hmm."

Barry shoots Cass a hurt look. Iris turns from the silence only to stare at the couple in surprise. She sees Cass wink at Barry before holding fresh tissues up to his nose and tilting his head back again. Her hand is soft against his cheek in reassurance.

A twinge of something foreign coils in Iris's gut, she looks away focusing back on Detective Pretty Boy. He was really cute and it was admiring how he was able to save the day. Iris always liked being the one that was saved. Sure, she was all for female empowerment, but a knight in shining armor? That was pretty great too.

Barry can see the faint signs of laughter around Cass's eyes, the soft hidden smile she always has for him, and the lightness in her eyes from teasing. She was admiring to him.

Today was the day that he was supposed to be introducing her to his best friend. Instead of bonding at the Particle Accelerator Ceremony, they were stuck in the precinct with a bleeding Barry from a fight he couldn't run fast enough to stop.

Cass didn't freak out at the change of plans though. Didn't panic demanding what was going on at the sight of blood dripping down Barry's face. She just smiled fondly and grabbed some tissues out of the air.

"You got in a fight, didn't you?" She had asked him teasingly and fond. It reminded Barry so much of his mother than that his heart hurt for a moment.

Barry starred at the two most important woman in his life in front of him. His hand reaching out to rub circles against the bare skin of Cass's powerful thigh in silent thanks.

* * *

"This is the last one on Barry's list," Joe says as the duo pull up to a farm in the middle of nowhere, rain steadily pouring.

"Look, I know the kid's smart, but you said it yourself, sometimes he's chasing flying pigs."

"Well, let's check it out anyway."

* * *

"Allen!" The chief barks from his office, "I need those lab results now!"

"I'll be back guys," Barry sighs. He squeezes Cass's hands as he stands to make his way up to his lab. She smiles in reassurance. She had a way of always being understanding despite the situation. Somehow she was more understanding about the nature of his job than Iris was.

He frowns after pulling the door to his lab open, seeing the mess of water in the center of his lab. Someone had left the window above open and with the downpour of the storm, his lab was now a pond.

He was careful to walk around the puddle in order to keep his converse from getting too wet. He dropped his coat on his chair, flipping the TV on.

"I'm Linda Park, and we're live outside S.T.A.R. Labs, despite the inclement weather which is only going to get worse. The torrential downpour has in no way affected the particle accelerator, which is up and running smoothly according to S.T.A.R. Labs CEO Harrison Wells." Sings from the TV.

Barry frowns, wishing he could still be there, despite probably getting soaked and ruining his favorite pair of shoes. He turned towards his pin board, lifting the maps to reveal a secret case he had been working on, his mothers. He pins the article that led him to Starling City on to the board, studying it and hoping to find some sort of connection.

* * *

The two detectives enter the barn, lights out and guns at the ready. They step with tension in their steps. The barn is free from the dust of an abandoned building, lights left on inside. They step further in, beginning to spread apart. Hidden in the corner, a great big tarp thrown hap hazardously was completely dust free.

Joe steps closer to lift the tarp up, checking underneath. The hidden grill of a car with a simple cobra design appears. There stands in the corner of the barn, the Shelby GT500.

“Well?” The first detective asks.

“Mardon.”

A shot is heard and lands just above Joe, barely missing him. The detectives quickly move, hiding behind pillars with their guns posed and ready to aim and fire. The detective turns and shots in to the air, not knowing where to aim. Joe turns to shot, aiming for the sky. He can see the outline of a figure in the shadows.

Joe aims a shot causing the figure to leap back in shock, and tumble from the rafters on to the hay barrels.

“I've got a plane to catch.” The figure yells, turning to shoot behind him as he ran for the exit. The detectives glance at each other before following.

“What the hell?” The detective steps out from his cover, squinting in to the rain. The figure turns and shots, shooting him in the neck. “Oh!” The figure runs, following a plane that had driven up. Joe shoots, stepping in front of his fallen partner.

He misses, the figure disappearing in to the plane. He turns to check on his partner, still lying on the ground with blood seeping out of his mouth and around his hands that clutched his neck.

“Chyre, hang in there.”

Chyre moans, before falling on his back, his body stills. The plane takes off in to the rain.

* * *

“So…” Iris starts awkwardly.

Cass turns to stare at Iris directly, waiting for Iris to make the first move.

“How long have, ugh…, you and Barry been, um…, together…” Iris states awkwardly, looking down and away.

Cass tries to smile reassuringly, “6 months.”

Iris’s eyes widen. Barry has had a girlfriend for so long and didn’t bother to tell her? Tell Joe either? He didn’t tell anyone?

“What-“ she shakes her head, clearing it of the shock and making a mental note to yell at Barry for keeping secrets later, “I mean, how did you guys-“

However, Cass was no longer listening. Her head snaps to the side. She steps closer to the window, eyes furrowed in thought.

* * *

_Beep Beep Beep_

Barry turns at the strange sound coming from the TV, drawing him out of his spiraling thoughts on the murder of his mother.

“Wait, we are now being told to evacuate the facility. The storm may have caused a malfunction to the primary cooling system. Officials are now trying to shut down the particle accelerator. But so far have been unable to regain” The TV says before it goes black. Barry looks on in concern and shock.

He hears a strange boom, looking up at the skyline. In the distance is a bright flash of light that looks to be an explosion followed a pulse. Shock fills his features as a ripple of power outages originate from the explosion like a water droplet landing in a pond.

  
Cass feels the ripple, like a shock to her system, her eyes widening as the power fails. Dread fills her bones; a change is in the air. She can feel it, something is coming, something big.

“Barry,” Cass whispers, turning away from Iris without answering her question. She steps away leaving a floundering Iris behind.

Annoyed, Iris narrows her eyes at the rudeness, but she turns back to the window, watching the explosion. The police around her have all woken from their lapse in to shock and are preparing for action. The chief steps out of his office, barking orders to the officers.

She glances at the empty desk of her fathers with worry.

* * *

Joe glances up, watching the plane heading towards Central City. His eyes shine with fear at the ripple pushing the clouds to roll away. It hits the plane, splitting it in to two in a fiery explosion. He’s pushed back by a strange gust of wind.

* * *

Barry tries to shut the window above his lab, having to do it manually with the power out. There’s a chain nest to his chemicals cabinets for this purpose. It’s wet and cool to the touch after being rained on for a few hours.

He pulls it once and then feels something, a strange noise that seems so familiar. He glances around him. His bottles of chemicals are shaking on there shelves. The liquids stare to shake and move independently, beginning to fly. The situation so similar to that day.

He hears the crackle of thunder and looks up to the sky, expecting to see lightning flash.

Instead, pure white lightning flies through the window, shattering the glass above him to rain down, and stopping inside Barry. It branches out, connecting Barry to all the chemicals in the room. It flings him down, but then a bright golden ripple runs floats through the room, flinging Barry back in to the shelves behind him and leaving him unconscious.

A single white bolt, a trace of the electricity from the lightning, runs from his finger tips up his body, across his neck, along his chest to his brain.

* * *

 

Cass pauses on the steps up to the lab, feeling an energy ripple through the air towards her. Time slows as a ripple of golden light heads straight for her.

She panics.

Acting on instinct, she thrusts her arms out, trying to block the energy from reaching her. It bounces off and flies back from where it came from. The same direction as Barry’s lab.

“Barry!” she screams ignoring the way her throat burns.There’s a loud crash that comes from behind closed doors. She races up the remaining few steps, barely pausing to assess the damage. She sees Barry, flung across the shelves, his eyes closed, body soaked with water and blood.

Barry wasn’t breathing.

“No,” she stumbles over the chemicals, not caring what they were to kneel next to Barry, searching for a pulse, “no… no, no, no no.”

She panics when she is unable to find one. Her hands flutter across his chest, feeling for something… anything… She sees the scorch marks on his shirt, and the lines on his skin.

“NO!” She presses against his chest to continue her search and finding nothing. Barry was dead.

“Barry!” she doesn’t think it through, only reacts and presses everything she has in to finding Barry.

“Barry, wake up,” She cries, tears threatening to fall. Her hands ghost up to cradle his head, a shock from his skin jumping in to hers.

“HELP!” She screams, her voice cracking and burning her throat from the overuse.

Tears fall on to Barry’s face.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispers into his forehead.

“PLEASE!” She tries again, to no avail.

“Forgive me,” she seals her lips over Barry’s and breathes.

Barry gasps in, suddenly breathing again, but not waking. Cass can feel the energy under his skin pulsing.

“SOMEONE HELP!” She screams again, suddenly exhausted. The adrenaline beginning to dissipate. There’s a burning sensation in her knees where she rests over Barry. She tries to move the glass shards out away from his face.

“Barry?” Iris asked, stepping in to the lab cautiously, “Oh my god!” she gasps after noticing the damage. “Barry!” she tries to step forward, a hand flying to her mouth in horror at the sight before her.

“Get help,” Cass calls over her shoulder. Footsteps still echoing closer, “doctor,” frustration seeping in to her voice. “Iris!”

Dark eyes flicker to meet bright blue ones; the worry shocking Iris in to action. She nods, stumbling back towards the door praying that Barry was okay.

Surprisingly, the medics don’t get there immediately. There’s a lot of injured in the city backing them up. The police chief sends all the men that he can to assist and the mayor places the city in a state of emergency.

Barry crashes 3 times while waiting for the ambulance to arrive. Cass presses his chest with everything she has each time. More people file in, helping to move the debris. Someone, she doesn’t see who, asks what happened. She doesn’t know how she knows exactly, but all she can say is “lightning.”

* * *

Paramedics burst through the hospital doors carrying a man wrapped in a silver blanket to keep him warm. An oxygen mask forces air in to his lungs. 

His body was strapped down to the gurney after the second seizure in the ambulance. The hospital is already past capacity. The less critical patients are being sent to Keystone, but they are almost full.

A young surgeon, fresh from school steps forward to receive the new patient. His eyes are determined and afraid. It’s his first time working alone. It was a few months too soon and wouldn’t have happened if it wasn’t for the explosion.

“What the hell happened to him?” he asks.

“He was hit by lightning.” A paramedic replies amazed.

“How is he still alive?” Another asks, they all glance at each other knowingly. The odds aren’t in the patients favor. Roughly 10% of those struck by lightning die. Most of those weren’t even hit as badly as Barry was. Most the lightning just went through on it’s way to the ground. It rarely stopped inside someone.

The team rushes to an open room, getting ready to place him on the table for surgery.

“Go!”

“He's SVT.” A nurse calls, ripping his shirts off to reveal a large angry lightning bolt running down his chest and growing.

“Pulse ox 80%.”

“No heartbeat.”

“CBC, chem 24, type and cross blood.”

“Bag him.”

“Coding!”

Iris bursts through the doors, worry on her face, tears streaming down her cheeks.

“You can't be in here!” A nurse notices and tries to grab her, pulling her back.

“I'm family!” Iris persists. Cass stumbles in behind her, eyes trained on Barry’s lifeless form.

“Charging paddles, 200.”

“Can I get some help in here?” A nurse yells trying to hold both Cass and Iris back alone.

“Barry!” Iris yells again as the paddles are placed on his chest.

“Clear!” Cass feels the energy surge through the paddles in to Barry, his body arches, a breath leaving his lungs, his heart rate back. The doctor stares down at his paddles in shock.

“I thought you charged it to 200.”

“I did.”

“That wasn’t 200 hundred.” They look on and bewilderment, but don’t stay still for long. Their patient is back and needs them.

* * *

**Present**

Barry’s ears are the first to focus on the familiar music. It takes him a moment to remember the melody and why it’s so familiar. He tries to focus on it to make out the words and plunges in to the memory of the song.

_“A nightclub?” Barry had asked skeptical. Clubbing was never his thing since he was too clutzy, always tripping over his feet, running in to people, and accidentally smacking them when he went too far with his octopus moves._

_“Fun,” Cass winked, grabbing him by the hand. Barry was surprised. She didn’t seem like the party going type. She was always so quiet and reserved._

_“I don’t know about this,” apprehension creeping in to his voice as he subconsciously dragged his feet. Cass looked back, her eyes soft and knowing, she tugged lightly silently asking him to go along with it and really, when she looked as amazing as she did now, how could he say no?_

_Her hair was pulled back in to a high pony tail with a tight fitting dress that left a sliver of her waist bare. A waist, Barry noted, that was as toned as the rest of her. He could feel the compacted muscle hiding underneath, the strength in her tiny body. Her waist was small, the hourglass figure heavily defined on her._

_“Fine,” he groaned with a playful roll of his eyes, “I’m not really dressed for this though,” he grimaced glancing down at his sweater, cargo pants, and old converse. Not exactly clubbing wear anywhere, let alone in New York City._

_But Cass didn’t grimace, she only smiled and pulled him along. Barry had noticed that about her. It was one of his favorite qualities. She didn’t care what people said about her. The whispers behind her back, the second glances, the jealousy in other’s eyes, the terrifying want that others had that bordered on illegal. None of it fazed her. Like she was on another plane, untouchable, but she wanted Barry. Barry didn’t understand that, she was clearly beyond a 10 which was no where near Barry’s level._

_A tug on his arm pulled him from his thoughts, he could hear the heavy beat of the bass from outside the building. The place looked crowded and probably was inside given the huge line._

_“I don’t think we are gonna be able to get in,” Barry spoke, hoping she wouldn’t continue dragging him anymore. Cass only smirked over her shoulder and dragged him around the line. Barry was shocked, the party goers in the line groaning as another couple tried to skip the line. Barry was even more surprised when the bouncers didn’t even try to stop them from entering, just nodded and opened the door. No carding or anything._

_They made it past the door, the music louder inside. Cass turned and smiled at him, watching as his jaw dropped. It was like a mad scientist dream in there! The glasses were all smoking with something, the bartenders wearing actual lab coats and safety glasses, the glasses were all different flask sizes and test tubes. Even the shot glasses!_

_There were chemistry symbols everywhere and laser lights flying across the room. Everything white glowed. Literally, EVERYTHING. The pieces of Cass’s dress, her eyes, her teeth, his shoes, EVERYTHING._

_“Wow,” was all Barry could say in amazement. She dragged him over to the bar where Barry could see the names of the special drinks. All of which happened to be chemical formulas._

_He didn’t see what she ordered, but the smoking red drink served in the 150mL beaker was amazing. It gave him the liquid courage for the next part._

_Poker Face began playing through the speakers, the beat getting to them. Barry could see the slight movement in Cass’s body. If it wasn’t for the drink, he probably would have chickened out, but the next thing he knew he had dragged her on to the dance floor already._

_The thing about Cass is she was very quiet all the time. Sometimes not even needed to speak to get her point across. She also was fine with sitting and watching from afar. It’s not the first time the new couple had been to something along the party scene, but the thing about Cass was that she didn’t try to get drunk or to go crazy. She was fine with being a wallflower like Barry, but when she danced was a different story._

_Cass could dance, was an amazing dancer actually. She could speak using her body so well that she was studying at Juliard, the best dancing school in the world, after only a few years of dance lessons and was already one of their best ever. Barry didn’t totally understand, but he didn’t ask for clarification and Cass didn’t offer it._

_Barry tried, he really did try to dance at least somewhat on beat. Cass didn’t seem to mind though, laughing at his moves and showing off some of hers. The ones that were meant to be silly dances she even pulled off flawlessly._

_That was the night that Barry learned how well Cass could actually dance. To the tune of Lady GaGa’s Poker Face, Cass turned on Barry with her dancing. She moved in slow, not overly grinding like some of the other couples on the floor, but it was enough. Barry floundered for a moment, like a fish out of water, not sure where to put his hands or what to do. Cass didn’t even hesitate to grab his shaking hands, placing them on the bare skin of her waist._

_That was the night Barry learned how to grind. Granted, he didn’t think he could do it without Cass’s help again._

Barry would’ve smiled at the happy memory. He wanted to lose himself to it, but there were voices steadily growing louder the more he resurfaced. They were drowning out the happy memories he was stuck in.

“What are you doing?” A voice asks. Barry’s eyelids are heavy, but he fights for the little sliver of light so he can make out the shape of a figure standing over him.

“He likes this song.” Another responds. Barry can practically feel the smile on that voices face through the joy in their voice.

“How could you possibly know that?”

“I checked his Facebook page. I mean, he can hear everything, right?” The confidence in that voice wavering slightly.

“Auditory functions are the last sensory faculties to degenerate.”

Footsteps carried away from him, the voices getting softer as the memories flooded back.

  
_Cass dragged his hand across her stomach, his finger tips grazing under the waistband of her skirt. Barry’s head fell forward slightly, the want for more intensifying. He could smell the unique scent of her soft hair against his face. His fingers tightening on her hip._

_Cass dragged her hand, the one that gripped her hip, up the side of her body to wrap her fingers in his hair. With a roll of her hips to the tempo of the beat, she twisted her body in circles till she was face to face with Barry. Her electric blue eyes darker than before._

_“_ Can't read my No he can't read my poker face.”

_The fingers of her other hand gently ran up his chest to wrap around the other side of his face, his own gripping her hips closer to his, still moving to the music. Barry knew what was coming, the scorching first kiss that stopped time. The one he thought about when he was alone, the one that haunted his dreams even now. Their first physical moment together._

_Darkened blue eyes leaned closer, Barry leaning down in a trance, his own lips parting in anticipation._

_In a blink of his own eyes, bright white replaced the intense blue. Her entire eye sockets engulfed in glowing pure white light. It was like starring at the sun, so bright but Barry couldn’t look away from the scorching gaze._

_“Cass?” He asked in confusion. This moment wasn’t a part of his memory._

_Her response was a scream loud and animalistic that it drowned out everything else around him._

Barry sat up with a rush. His heart beating in his throat as he took great gasping breaths.

“Oh, my God!” A strange man before him with surprisingly really nice hair jumped back in shock.

“Where am I?” He asked clutching at his head. The echo of screams pounding against the sides.

“He's up!” Another figure, a girl, the soft voice from before, rushes toward him.

“Doctor Wells, get down to the cortex, like right now.” The nice haired dude said into his phone. Barry glanced around, not recognizing his surroundings and noticing all the wires and tubes attached to him.

“over 110. Pulse 120. Pupils equally reactive to light.” The girl was touching him, poking and prodding at him as if she was a doctor.

He grimaced, his head still fuzzy and jumbling everything inside his brain. Memories were moving too fast for him to focus on.

“Look at me. Look at me.” The doctor urged as he sat up and tried to move.

“Hey hey.” The nice haired man said, “Oh, oh, relax,” he called to Barry, placing a hand on his shoulder. “Every things okay, man,” he said as Barry stood up. The weight on his shoulder giving him stability in case he would fall. The doctor lady kept running through her checks as Barry moved, but Barry was too focused on his surroundings to care. “You're at S.T.A.R. Labs.” That got Barry’s attention enough for him to stop and focus his eyes on the man speaking to him.

He was shorter than Barry was, but just as thinned out as he was. His dark hair was long and full. Iris would be jealous if she saw it. His eyes were even darker than hers.

“S.T.A.R. Labs?” He asked, his voice hoarse and dry from no use. “Who, who are you?” His voice steadying quickly, the sensation rapidly changing back to what he remembers.  
  
“I'm Cisco Ramon. She's Caitlin, uh, Doctor Snow.”

“I need you to urinate in this,” Caitlin told him.

“Not this second,” Cisco chastised, grabbing the container Caitlin had been holding out for him. Nothing was making sense to Barry though. Switching to defense, he pulled his arms in to his body and backed out of their reach.

“What, what is happening? What is going on?” He asked turning towards the duo with wide eyes.

“You were struck by lightning, dude,” Cisco says excitedly. Barry laughs unamused and unbelieving. He turned to walk away, but froze in place to stare at his reflection.

“Wh- Lightning gave me abs?”

“Your muscles should be atrophied, but instead they're in a chronic and unexplained state of cellular regeneration.” Caitlin stated, touching his shoulders and feeling the muscles that that had been steadily growing and hardening over the past few months.

“Come here, have a seat,” Cisco grabs his shoulders from behind and drags him back to the gurney. “You were in a coma.”

“For how long?” Barry deadpans, not liking the sound of a coma.

“Nine months,” a new voice calls out. Barry turns and sees a man in a wheelchair. Not just any man though; Harrison Wells, his idol, “Welcome back, Mister Allen. We have a lot to discuss.”

Barry gapes, not fully able to process. Still feeling like he is swimming, he clutches his head and turns back to Cisco. The bright lights of Cass’s eyes seared into his brain with the echo of her screams.

“Let’s get you some clothes,” Cisco states.

* * *

“It's hard to believe I'm here.” Barry says walking along side Wells, “I've always wanted to meet you face to face.”

“Yeah? Well, you certainly went to great length to do it.” Barry doesn’t know whether that was sarcasm or annoyance. The two are walking through S.T.A.R. Labs, giving Cisco and Caitlin a chance to go over his tests while Wells filled Barry in on the time during his coma.

“S.T.A.R. Labs has not been operational since FEMA categorized us as a class 4 hazardous location. Many more were injured, myself amongst them.” They pause outside the break in the Particle Accelerator.

“Geez. What happened?” Barry asks seeing the scorch marks and debris.

“Nine months ago, the particle accelerator went online, exactly as planned. For forty-five minutes I had achieved my life's dream and then, then there was an anomaly. The electron volts became unmeasurable, the ring under us popped, energy from that detonation was thrown into the sky, and that, in turn seeded a storm-cloud.”

“That created a lightning bolt that struck me.”

“That's right,” Wells said with a hint of awe, he knew Barry was smart but he hadn’t realized how smart he was in the beginning until now.

“I was recovering myself, when I heard about you. The hospital was undergoing unexplainable power outages every time you were going into cardiac arrest, which was, actually a misdiagnosis, because you see, you weren't flat-lining, Barry, your heartbeat was moving too fast for the EKG to register it. Now, I'm not the most popular person in town these days but, Detective West and his daughter gave me permission to bring you here, where - we were able to stabilize you.”

“Iris?” Barry asks, flashes of a dark beautiful girl running through his mind.

“Iris, yes,” Wells says with a knowing smirk. “She came to see you quite often.”

“She talks a lot,” Caitlin states while handing Wells a drink.

“Also, she's hot,” Cisco adds, “not as hot as the other one though.”

Barry’s eyebrows rose as he turned to Cisco, “Cass?” A flash of her white eyes entering his mind again.

“She doesn’t talk,” Caitlin adds.

“She visited more often. Another friend of yours?” Wells asks with narrowed eyes.

“Girlfriend,” Barry supplies followed by shock on everyone’s faces and a long whistle by Cisco.

“Damn man.”

“9 months is a long time Barry, things change,” Wells mentions with caution.

“I need to go,” Barry says with a far off look.

“No, you can't.,” Caitlin calls to Barry’s back as he steps away.

“No, no, no, Caitlin's right,” Wells says, spinning his wheelchair around, “now that you're awake, we need to do more tests. You're still going through changes, there's so much that we don't know.”

“I'm fine, really. I feel normal,” Barry shrugs, “Thank you for saving my life,” he calls as he steps out of the room.

“Really?” Caitlin says.

“Can I keep the sweatshirt?” Barry calls after sticking his head back in to the room.

“Yeah, keep the sweatshirt,” Wells responds.

* * *

 

Barry pauses in front of Jitters, unsure whether to go in or not. He was kind of stunned that he had walked the entire way here without stopping once, without even breaking a sweat. There should have been some sort of muscle atrophy, but instead he had more muscles.

Now that he was here though, he was thinking that he probably should have checked with someone that Iris still worked here, or at the very least, worked today. He hadn’t even bothered to check what day it was. He knew it was September though since he had been in a coma for 9 months.

His worries left his mind the moment he saw Iris. She’s pouring customers coffee, a smile on her face. She looks slimmer than Barry remembers. She’s wearing a blue dress that looked loose on her despite its form fitting style.

She glances up, her eyes widening in shock. Her breath caught in her throat. At first she thinks this must be a dream. She barely places the coffee pot on the table, splashing the customers coffee, before rushing over to Barry. She tackles him in to a bone crushing hug that he somehow managed to catch without stumbling backward with the force of it. He makes a mental note to ask about that later.

“Oh my God! You're awake!” she screams in his ear, “Why didn't S.T.A.R. Labs call us?” She asks, holding on to his arms to be sure, still believing this to be a dream.

“I just woke up,” he tells her with a smile.

“Should you even be on your feet?” Worry covering her features. Her eyes ghost up and down his body in search of any injuries.

“Iris, I'm, I'm ok.”

“I watched you die, Barry,” resentment dripping off her words. Barry is surprised at the anger in her statement, “You kept dying and your heart kept stopping.”

He sighs, grabbing her hand and placing it over his heart, “Still beating.”

“Beats really fast.”

“Oops!” A customer calls after bumping in to a waitress’s tray. Time slows, Barry sees the tray slowly fall, the coffee cups starting to tilt and barely spilling, a key flying through the air around him, everyone barely moving. It’s as if time froze for everyone but Barry. Just as soon as it started, it disappears.

“Are you ok, Tracy?” Iris asks the other waitress.

“Yeah, I got it.” Iris turns back to Barry, her hand still over his chest.

“My dad is gonna be so happy to see you. Let me get my stuff, ok? I'll be right back.” She sprints across the coffee shop with a smile on her face. As soon as she turns, Barry watches the waitress in confusion.

It was like everything around him slowed down, just for a moment he could look and see everything happening around him.

* * *

“Thank you. Thank you so much,” A bank teller tells a customer as she scurries away with little more than a hint of a smile. The tellers smile falters. She quickly schools her features with practice ease. There's a tension in her shoulders, her smile too big to be genuine, bags hanging under her lifeless eyes.

“How can I help you today?” she asks the next customer. He’s wearing a cap over his head and looking down. He hands her a note for her to read. "’This is a robbery.’ Is this supposed to be a joke?” Her smile falling as her mood sours.

“You tell me,” the man speaks, his head raising from the shadows as he steps back to the center of the room. He raises his arms and the room begins to cool, a pressure coming from nowhere. Clouds rapidly form and with the clap of thunder, glass rains down as the pressure inside the building becomes too much. Anger is present on the robbers face, but confidence is everywhere in his stance.

* * *

“Oh, you scared the hell out of us, kid.” Joe says hugging Barry. There had been tears in his eyes when he had looked over to see his foster son walking and coma free. He had tackled him and still hadn’t let go before any of the other cops had noticed the newcomer. The other cops present in the precinct had all clapped for Barry upon his return when they noticed the commotion.

“Yeah, that was quite the nap you took there, baby-face. And you still look twelve,” an elder cop says passing by out of humor. Barry’s chest swells with the playful banter that he found himself missing even though to him, it was only yesterday that he last experienced it.

“You look ok,” Joe states, gripping Barry’s shoulder, not wanting to let go for fear that this was all a dream, “Are you really?”

The question throws Barry off for a moment. Is he really? The moment back at Jitters was strange. Waking up 9 months into a comma was strange. Cass’s eyes were strange.

“Yeah,” he nods, a smile not quite reaching his eyes. Joe means to tell Barry that he doesn’t believe the lie, but an officer beats him to speaking.

“Detective West, we've got a 5-50 in progress at Gold City Bank. Two dead. Storm's really picking up on the south side. I’d grab your rain gear.”

Joe nods before turning to Barry, his shoulders slumped. Ideally he would take time off to be with Barry, but the force was stretched too thin right now and he had already taken as many hours off as he could in the beginning.

“I'm sorry, Barry, I gotta run.”

“Do you need my help?” Barry asked eagerly. He needed some semblance of normalcy. Everything seemed off to him. Strange to wake up and have everything change overnight.

“No, you take it easy,” Joe commands, “There'll be plenty for you to do once you've settled in,” he turns to call over his shoulder, “Let's go partner.”

“Hey, Allen,” Eddie Thawne states as he puts on his coat, “Glad to see you,” a genuine smile gracing his features. It crinkles the edges of his eyes and causes them to shine. Barry is shocked by the true emotion of the detective he hadn’t had the chance to really get to know before the explosion.

“Thanks, Eddie.”

“Hey, Iris,” Eddie states, staring at Iris with a fondness that has Barry’s eyebrows rising. Barry stares, seeing a crinkle around the detective’s eyes. Since when did Eddie have a thing for Iris?

“Detective, you should go, my dad doesn't like to be kept waiting,” Iris states monotoned avoiding eye contact. Barry’s eyebrows raise at her strange cold demeanor.

“Glad you're back,” Eddie calls again before following Joe out the door. Barry’s eyes track his back before noticing a strange glass box in the corner. It wasn’t there last time Barry was in the precinct. Just another thing that had changed while he slept. Upon closer inspection, Barry notices a picture of Joe’s old partner inside. His eyebrows draw in slowly as he stares, knowing that the man was now dead. A heaviness fills the air.

“The night of the explosion, Clyde Mardon shot and killed Chyre. Mardon and his brother died trying to escape, but their plane crashed.”

“Iris! Got a minute?” The elder cop from before calls out to Iris. Barry’s a little bit surprised that she goes almost immediately. She barely says anything to Barry, almost like she had forgotten that he was there.

“Hey Barry,” another cop calls to him with another genuine smile. He’s standing near the precinct camera, pausing his processing of a new criminal. “Good to see you.” Barry smiles, nodding at the cop in thanks.

He glances over at the perp being brought in. He’s rugged looking, dirt and grim covering his face. His clothes appear as if they haven’t been washed, his hair as if it had never been brushed. A cop next to him turns away from the perp for a moment. The other stamping his finger prints not focused on any other body parts.

Barry sees the man glance down, his arm raising as he made for the gun, but none of the cops were noticing. The perp gets his hand on the gun and Barry reacts before thinking it through. Time slows as he rushes over, he pushes the perp away, his arm that had been on the gun letting go and flying behind him.

Not even a second passes and Barry is back where he was standing, the perp bent over the desk as two cops now pin him down, papers flying in the air, a single hanging light swaying, and the smell of electricity in the air.

“Screw you!” The perp struggles against their hold, unable to break free. The cops pull him up and drag him back to the cells putting the cuffs back in place. Barry relaxes, the crisis of a perp shooting the precinct avoided.

His relaxed stance only lasts for a moment before confusion and horror take over his face, his eyes going distant.

“You ok?” Iris asks, turning him away from the scene.

“I- I'm fine,” Barry stumbles back, breathless, “I- I just need some air, but I'll call you tonight. All right?” Barry hurries away, forgetting that he didn’t have a phone to call Iris with yet.

He’s out the door before Iris can remind him of this. His phone had been fried when the lightning hit. It had been in his pocket and was a melted pile of destroyed metal now. Joe was going to get him a new one, but then the doctors said that he wasn’t ever going to wake up any time soon and that thought went out the window.

Barry stumbles out the main door into the entrance hall, his breath coming in thick gasps that leave his chest tight, his vision beginning to darken as signs of a panic attack begin. A familiar sensation. One that he hasn’t in years. Barry switches tactics, going for the door to the ally in the back where the patrol cars are kept instead.

Once outside, he pulls his hands up, expecting them to be shaking. He was going to curl them into fists as tight as he could. The pain from his fingernails digging half moons into his palms normally being enough to focus on and get him though a panic attack. They are vibrating instead. Moving so fast that his hand was just a white blur.

“What's happening to me?” Barry grips his hand hoping to stop the vibrations. All thoughts of clenching his fists dissipating. He means to run, his body pumping with adrenaline and the urge to flee. He means to take a step, but rams into the dumpster on the other side of the ally instead.

He turns, meaning to step back away from the dumpster, and he rams in to the back of a cop car. The glass of the back-window shattering. Barry stares at it, his jaw dropping. He stumbles back to the center of the ally. He is careful to move slow this time. The pain from the initial impacts already gone.

For a moment, he smiles a shy smile. An unbelieving smile. He glances around to make sure the ally is empty. Then he runs.

Everything is moving slow around him as he flies by. Barry can feel something, something more. Some energy filling him and pushing every step he takes as he runs. Pushing and edging him on to go faster and faster.

Barry’s never really been a runner despite his small size and high metabolism. He had the body for it according to Iris, but he could never quite get his limbs to corporate. He tripped over everything, even the air. His limbs always flailing in multiple directions like a newborn deer. Plus he had always been very slow, even when their were bullies on his tail. He couldn’t do long distance either, always getting winded way sooner then he should have no matter how long he ran for.

But today? Right now? This was exhilarating. The wind flipping by him, brushing the hair from his face. The power in each of his steps. Being able to see everything all at once. Barry felt like he was flying. No, that wasn’t the right word for it. Barry felt like he was soaring.

That is, until he tripped…

Barry landed in a van, the driver busy filling it with bags of dirty laundry. It smelled horrible, but was a much softer landing than Barry expected. The driver moved one of the bags with a raised eye brow.

“Awesome!” he exclaimed to a bewildered driver.

* * *

 

“You don't really believe he can run that fast, do you?” Caitlin asks Wells. They are at Ferris Air’s testing strip. The place had been abandoned a few years ago after the disappearance of one of their test pilots. It wasn’t private property anymore since the city seized it after the owner passed away.

“Well, I believe anything is possible, and in a few minutes, maybe you will too,” Wells tells her with a knowing smirk.

“How does it fit?” Cisco calls from where he is pacing back in forth in front of the open door to the S.T.A.R. Labs Mobile Research Unit.

“It's a little snug,” he calls as he steps out. A bright red spandex onesie hugging his every move.

Caitlin blushes and looks away. Wells too but with a different expression, one of shock. Cisco starred contemplatively, his thoughts lost for a moment. The sudden realization of why someone like Cass, who was clearly out of his league, was with a guy like Barry.

“At least you'll be moving so fast, no one will see you,” he attempts to offer kindly. “See, you thought the world was slowing down, it wasn't.” Cisco grabs Barry’s shoulder, surprised at how firm it was, and steers him towards the tarmac. “You were moving so fast, it only looked like everyone else was standing still. Doctor Wells will be monitoring your energy output, and Caitlin your vitals.”

“What do you do?”

“I make the toys, man,” A genuine excited smile gracing Cisco’s features. “Check it. This,” he holds up a circular device with a golden lightning bolt on it, “is a two-way headset with a camera I modified. Typically designed to combat battlefield impulse noise, or in your case, potential sonic booms. Which would be awesome,” his voice getting louder out of excitement with each word he spoke. It wasn’t often that he got to ramble off to someone about things that he thought was super cool. It was even less often that they understood and judging by Barry’s expression, despite the wide-eyes at the thought of making a sonic boom, Barry had understood every word Cisco had said.

Cisco grabs Barry’s helmet and walks off to add his headset to it. Barry momentarily stunned, but quick to recover. It would be pretty cool if he could make a sonic boom.

Caitlin walks over with her Ipad, checking his vitals with pursed lips. Barry watches with curious eyes, the worry lines seem to be embedded on her face.

“What?” She bites out with more vile than intended.

“Nothing. I just noticed you don't smile too much.”

Caitlin pauses, anger filling her eyes as she meets his.

“My once promising career in bio-engineering is over. My boss is in a wheelchair for life. The explosion that put you in a coma, also killed my fiancee. So this blank expression kinda feels like the way to go.” She checks another vital before stalking off. Barry goes to apologize, but bites his tongue unsure of what to say. What do you say to that?

“Mister Allen,” Wells calls rolling close, “while I am extremely eager to determine your full range of abilities, I do caution restraint.” Something strange in his eyes as he speaks. It sets red flags off in Barry’s mind, but he lets it go, just nodding in response.

“Yeah.”

It only takes Cisco another moment to finishing tinkering with Barry’s helmet. He brings it back as he adds the final touches to strap it on Barry’s head. He offers a kind smile, giving him two thumbs up in good luck.

Barry steps up to the starting block, taking a deep breath. He’s never used one before, but he knew the mechanics of it. For a moment, looking out at the empty road in front of him he thinks he must be crazy. He’s going to take a step and not have super speed. He’s just hallucinating everything.

Barry looks back at the trio, the trio that had faith in him. Well, 2 of the 3 had faith in him. His eyes met Wells, who only gave him an encouraging smile before slipping on dark sunglasses.

Barry turns back to the open road in front of him, takes a breath and feels something in him. Something that gave him the strength to take that first step.

Full of power and energy, with a gust of wind that pushes Cisco back on to the ground, sends Wells’s wheels back despite being locked, sends all of their papers flying, shatters the glass of the windows and the boards they had equations written on, Barry runs leaving a strange flicker behind him. There a moment and gone the next in a red blur. The trio look on with shocked faces. Excitement fills one, confusion another, and shock in the last as Barry runs.

“Whoo-hoo!” he screams as he runs, a feeling he can’t describe chasing after him, bright golden white sparks dance off his skin. each burst striking a new area around him as he ran, almost as if it was propelling him forward. The crackle of thunder follows Barry as he runs. 

“He just passed 200 knots per hour,” Cisco cheers, Caitlin’s binoculars barely able to keep up with the blur flying along the tarmac.

“That's not possible,” she whispers in awe.

Barry runs, the world around him flying past him faster than he can keep up with, images starting to soar past instead, yellow and red light flickering across his vision. Suddenly he is back in the past, the night his mother died.

“ _Mom!”_

_Red and Yellow lightning racing past her, one chasing after the other._

_“No! Barry!” His mother calls, reaching for him. For a moment there is a red blur in front of him, with a shape similar to that of a figure, but then it’s gone in a flash of yellow lightning._

_“No!” she yells again, “Don’t Don’t let him touch you!” The window shatters and Barry glances over, seeing a figure dressed in yellow with glowing red eyes before it’s gone in a flash of red lightning. The same color as it’s eyes._

Barry blinks, his vision darkening as he gets stuck in the memory. His breath quickens in his tight chest. Barry can feel the beginning on a panic attack coming on. He wants to stop running. Terrified of what could happen if he was running while panicking.

Suddenly, white eyes fill his vision and a sharp scream, almost like a bird screeching, shocks him out of it. He’s back at the tarmac and running straight to the barrels filled with water used to protect things from being too damaged upon impact. He tries to stop, but skids in to them with a loud explosion. A few of the barrels shattering on impact and sending the water flying around him.

White pain flashes through his now throbbing wrist. Groaning in pain and breathing hard from it. He makes to sit up, but struggles without using his hands, using the barrel beside him instead. The only thing he can focus on now is the pain in his arm.

* * *

“What is all this?” The police chief asks stepping in to the precinct from his lunch.

“Witnesses from the robbery at Gold City Bank. Perp made off with 200 grand, more or less,” Joe supplies.

“Catch this guys,” the chief calls, barely glancing up from his phone. Joe nods, looking over at one of the witnesses as she gives her story.

“The windows blew in, it was like a hurricane. Everyone ran for cover,” shes shuddering, barely able to give her statement as she stumbles through the words. She clutches her blanket close for protection, shivering more from shock rather than cold.

“We're gonna have a sketch artist work with you, if you feel up to it,” Eddie gives a reassuring smile, finishing writing her words down. He glances over at the sketch artist on the case and nods before leaving with another smile and nod.

“Third robbery in a month, where a freak storm precedes it,” he tells Joe, “Sounds like one of those Wide World of Weird cases Barry's obsessed with,” he jokes.

“He's not obsessed,” Joe groans.

“Guess you haven't read his blog,” the smirk evident in his tone, Joe didn’t even need to turn around to see it to know it was there.

“The security cameras at the bank?”

“Apparently they all shorted out.”

“Well, we've got a bunch of witnesses here,” Joe gestures towards the full waiting area. Eddie looks at him in confusion. Despite being a detective for a few years, and one of the best for Keystone, he apparently still had a lot to learn.

“They all have cellphones.” He mentally laughs at the realization on Detective Pretty Boy’s face. He lets Eddie go, letting him grab the one witness who happened to be on his phone that very moment and bring him back to their desks. It didn’t take much to get the witness to turn in his phone and let them upload the video he had taken.

“The sky went black, and then boom! Outside was inside. Man, it was like there was a thunderstorm, in the bank,” the witness tells Eddie his statement, the other cops around listening in. Joe watches the video, not believing it was real. It was like watching a hurricane on the news, except it was inside the bank and there was no hurricane and hadn’t been one all day.

He plays the video again, searching for anything helpful. The screen is dark and hard to make it out at first, but he eventually finds a moment at the end where everything is clear and a clue.

“Vukovich, suspect is driving a black Mustang, partial plate 6 Kilo Charlie 3. Put out an APB.”

“Copy that.”

* * *

“It looks like you had a distal radius fracture,” Caitlin says with a small amount of excitement. The most emotion Barry had seen from her since he woke up that wasn’t doom and gloomy or angry.

“Had?”

“It's healed,” she flips through his x-ray, showing the difference. Her eyes alight for once, “In three hours.”

“How is that even possible?”

“We don't know. Yet.”

“You really need to learn how to stop,” Cisco laughs at him, but he’s right. Barry kept crashing in to things, unable to stop, only skid until he hit something. Barry doesn’t add that his stumbling thing was natural to him. He was like a newborn deer after all.

“What happened out there today? You were moving pretty well, and then something caused you to lose focus?” Wells asked, rolling forward.

Barry stops rubbing his wrist, his entire body freezing for a moment. Everyone he has ever told about that night has either ran off or sent him to a shrink. Everyone said he was crazy, everyone that knew his side of what happened that night that is. Now he doesn’t talk about it, but after today? Maybe this trio would understand.

“I started remembering something,” his eyes get far away. He isn’t lost in the memory, but the feelings of it. Wells gestures with raised eyebrows, asking for Barry to continue. With a sigh, knowing this might be the end of a budding friendship he continues on, “When I was 11, my mother was murdered.”

The room goes silent, no one moves, heaviness blankets the room.

“It was late, a sound woke me up. I came downstairs, and I saw what looked like a ball of lightning. Inside the lightning, there was a man. He killed my mom.” Anger drips off of Barry’s last sentence. Enough that Wells has to look away and clean his glasses. Unable to keep the gaze of the man in front of him.

“They arrested my dad. He's still sitting in Iron Heights for her murder. Everyone, the cops, the shrink, they, they all told me what I saw was impossible. But what if the man who killed my mom was like me?”

“Well, I think I can say unequivocally you are one of a kind.”

Barry grimaces at Wells’s comforting words. 

* * *

 

“Can I help you, Detective?” Iris calls to Eddie’s back from where he sits outside Jitters.

“You can stop acting like you can't stand me when your dad's around,” he answers with a roll of his eyes. He folds his newspaper and places it on the table.

“Aww,” she smiles, letting the pretense of dislike drop to wrap her hands around Eddie’s face. “But I like having a boyfriend who isn't shot to death.”

They smile at each other before Iris brings his face into a kiss.

It’s a long kiss for only being one. Just the pressing of lips against each other. It’s meant to be a quick hello, but the moment Iris’s lips touch Eddie’s, she can’t help but pause. A tension in her body from a stressful day and the stress of having her best friend in a coma dissipating the longer they kiss.

This pause is her downfall.

She pulls away with a smile, relaxed and happy. She looks into his strong gaze, but the heaviness of it is too much for her to bare for too long. She looks away with a blush and freezes with dread, her smile falling instantly.

Across the street is Barry. Barry with darkened eyes. Barry who had just woken up from a coma today. Barry who didn’t know about Iris and Eddie. For a moment, Iris feels satisfied with the revenge. Just a taste of what it was like 9 months ago when she learned Barry had a girlfriend and didn’t tell anyone.

Then she remembers that day. That was the day Barry had wanted to introduce Cass to Iris. He was planning on telling Iris that day, and he wasn’t going to do it by kissing her in front of him out of nowhere for her to stumble upon. All of Iris’s vengeful satisfaction leaves her in an instant to be replaced with regret.

“Excuse me,” she tells Eddie, stumbling off towards Barry before he can even reply. He stares after in confusion, thinking he had done something wrong. But his confusion lifts as she sees who she is running to.

At first he is annoyed, but the rational side of him realizes that the duo had just gotten their secret relationship caught by her foster brother that had just woken up from a coma.

“Don’t tell Dad,” is the first thing out of Iris’s mouth when she reaches Barry. He sighs, his shoulders slumping forward, but doesn’t respond.

“Look, can we just,” she glances back towards Jitters, seeing her boss watching her, “one second,” she stumbles back towards the coffee shop while taking her apron off.

“I’m going on break,” she doesn’t wait for a reply before running towards Barry leaving behind annoyed coworkers and a sad Eddie who watches them walk off. She had given him an apologetic grimace as she had ran past him, but that was the only sign of affection given.

Her coat pulled tight around her, the duo had walked along the sidewalk not knowing how to start the conversation.

“You can't tell my dad,” Iris says after a few moments of silence, awkwardness and tension hanging in the air, her voice final. “He doesn't know about me and Eddie.”

“Doesn't seem like anyone's in on the secret,” resentment dripping off of Barry’s voice so much that it surprised them both.

“Look who’s talking.”

Barry glances over in surprise before his eyes harden, “You didn’t find out by walking in on me and Cass.”

Iris sighs, knowing he was right, but also hurt that he waited months to tell her. Didn’t they tell each other everything?

Barry’s shoulders slump slightly, remembering that he still hadn’t called Cass. He didn’t have a way to call her without his phone. That’s why he was back at Jitters, to ask Iris for her phone or his phone or some way to call Cass. He didn’t even know if Cass and him were still a thing. A lot can change in 9 months.

“I was gonna tell you,” Iris whines, Barry shooting her a look that caused her to stumble over her words. Normally Barry gave in to her whines easily, but not this time. “When you were in the hospital, Eddie covered my father's shifts so that we could both be with you. I thanked him with a cup of coffee, and things just kind of happened. And it's good,” she smiles, her heart soaring. Eddie was amazing and sweet. He treated her like she was his world.

“Dating your partner's daughter, isn’t that against department regulations?” Barry spoke with more anger than he meant. Something green and vile had taken root in the pit of his stomach and he didn’t know how to quench it. He was with Cass though or had been before he went into the coma. Why was he so jealous?

“Why are you so upset?”

“I just don't like having to lie to your dad, you know?” The excuse doesn’t work and they both know it. Barry kept secrets from Joe all the time. The latest one being his surprise trip to Starling City. Barry looked away, watching as police cars chased after a black car.

Time slows and he sees the moment one of the cars skids. It hits the water from under the bridge, it’s back tires trying and failing to go in a separate direction from the front ones. It turns, the car spinning as the cop inside fights for control. The car twists, it’s back end swinging out and heading towards them. Barry reacts on instinct, grabbing Iris and diving out of the way.

They land hard, but Barry shakes it off fast. Iris lays moaning from the after effects of the sudden impact.

He glances over at the black car, seeing it in slow motion as it inches by. The driver looks over at him, a familiar face glancing over at him. He races after it immediately.

“Barry?” Iris groans, her body still hurting as she tries to stand up, but sees no one around her.

Barry runs, catching up to the car in less than a second. He means to run in to the car, to knock it off the road. Only, this time something works differently. He finds himself inside the car, glass all around him from the shattered window, but the door still intact as if nothing had hit it. The strange golden lightening dancing around him inside the car for a second.

He glances over at the driver, both looking at each other in shock. Barry didn’t think he opened the door and judging by the handle, it was locked anyway.

The driver recovers quicker, grabbing his gun to shoot at Barry. But Barry’s instincts react faster, time slowing as he grabs the wheel and yanks before the driver can finish getting the gun out of his pocket.

The car flips, back end flying over the front as it lands on it’s front, sliding across the wet pavement. Barry’s head hits the dash, his body being knocked around as the car moves down the road. When it comes to a stop, Barry fights to get out the open window. He gets scrapes all over his arms and face from the glass around him. Something in his arm hurts and his leg feels broken.

His vision clears just in time for him to see the driver limping away. He was somehow able to get out of the car before Barry was.

“Hey! Mardon!” Barry calls as he finally frees himself, limping and hunched over for just a moment before his body quickly heals and he finally feels fine, the pain gone.

Mardon glances behind himself, his brows drawn tight in anger. He finishes turning around to face Barry, stepping closer with raised arms, blood dripping down his face.

Fog appears out of nowhere to cover the scene and to take Mardon. There’s a car honking behind Barry. As he turns, it hits the wrecked vehicle in its way, the driver unable to see through the thick fog. In a fiery explosion it flips over the car, landing with another bang just as Barry races out of the way. Mardon dissipating into the fog.

* * *

“That poor man. The way that fog came in, I have never seen anything like it,” Iris comments as the driver from the second car is wheeled away in a black bag.

“Barry! Iris!” Joe screams, racing towards them with a worry that only a parent could feel for their children. Iris was his little girl and he had just gotten Barry back. He couldn’t bare to lose them both so soon.

“I'm all right, Dad,” Iris tries to reassure despite the bruising she knows she will have after the hard fall onto the corner of the pavement.

“What the hell were you thinking having her out there?” He directs towards Barry, confusion on both his and Iris’s face.

“No, no, no,” Iris tries to correct him. They were just walking and happened to be in the wrong place, wrong time. It wasn’t Barry’s fault this time.

“And I told you! When you see danger, you run the other way! You're not a cop!” Iris rolls her eyes at her dads words, too used to this argument.

“Because you wouldn't let me!”

“You're damn right!”

“Joe, I need to talk to you,” Barry interrupts before the duo can get going on another argument over Iris’s future.

“It can wait,” Joe dismisses, more concerned for his daughter’s safety and annoyance at Barry for dragging her in to danger again than hearing what Barry had to say.

“No, now,” the command in his voice causing Iris and Joe to glance at each other in surprise. Barry wasn’t one to demand things. He wasn’t typically a forceful person.

Joe steps away from Iris for a moment, looking at Barry expectedly. He’s rubbing his hands together, a nervous tick he’s had since he was little and started getting anxiety attacks.

“I know who did this. It's Clyde Mardon.”

Joe sighs, his eyes shooting to the sky at Barry’s unbelievable confession.

“I know, everybody thinks he died in a plane crash after the S.T.A.R. Labs explosion, but he is alive. All right, something happened to him that night. I- I think he can control the weather.” Barry can see Joe losing it, his eyes losing focus like they often did when Barry went off on tangents about the unexplainable. “The recent robberies, they all happened during freak meteorological events. And when I just confronted Mardon, the street was instantly enveloped in fog.” He tries again, but only sees the same look Joe gets every time he talks about the impossible. The look he gets that makes him think for a moment that all Joe would like is to lock Barry up in a psych ward.

“Of course you don't believe me,” he whispers, “You never believe me,” resentment and anger present in his voice, his eyes suddenly hard and guarded.

“Ok. You wanna do this now? Out here? Fine,” Joe continues before Barry can reply. Barry takes a deep breath, steeling himself. “Mardon is dead. There is no controlling the weather, Barry. Just like there was no lightning storm in your house that night. It was your brain helping a scared little boy accept what he saw.”

“My dad did not murder my mom,” Barry steps up to Joe, ready to fight for what he believes and knows is true.

“Yes, he did! Your dad killed your mother, Barry!”

Barry steps back, his shoulders hunching forward, eyes cast down at the vehemence in his foster father’s voice. His heart hurts, hurts for his dad who is locked in prison still, hurts for the one standing in front of him who doesn’t believe him. No one believes him, ever. His story sounds crazy, even to him, but before today it was crazy. Barry isn’t so sure anymore though, but years and years of disbelief weigh on him.

“I am sorry, son, but I knew it, the jury knew it, now he's paying for what he did.”

Barry breaks for just a moment. A flicker in his eyes with heavy guilt, tears threaten to fall.

“Dad, enough!” Iris steps in their bubble, trying to pull her dad away as she watches Barry crumble.

“No, Iris! I have done my best to take care of you since that night, and I never asked for anything in return, not even a thank you, but what I do ask now, is that you for once in your life, see things as they are.”

Barry wants to say something, anything. But he holds his tongue and walks away. It was a fight he was never going to win. He doesn’t let the tears fall until he is alone. Outside of the crime scene, away from everyone else. He wants to call Cass, he normally would after a fight with Joe. She had a way of calming him despite using very few words. She doesn’t push him like Iris does and lets him move at his own pace.

They had been moving slow during the short time they had had together. Moving almost at a snail pace. Long distance relationships were hard. Sure there were phone calls and many Skype calls and a few dates here and there to get to know each other.

He still doesn’t have a phone though and he isn’t about to turn around and run back to Joe with his tail between his legs to ask to use theirs.

Then again, he wasn’t even sure if he still had a girlfriend to call. Wells was right, 9 months was a long time. She was probably with someone else by now, only coming to visit him in S.T.A.R. Labs out of obligation. Iris was with someone else now.

9 months ago Cass was still studying at Juliard and living in New York City. She could be anywhere in the world now after graduation. She was the top dancer Juliard had ever had apparently, but she never had plans for where she wanted to go. She never told Barry these plans at least.

Iris glares at her dad, watching as his face falls the further Barry gets away. She stalks off in the other direction, back towards the crime scene. Passing by Eddie, meeting his eyes and seeing something that encourages her and gives her courage and strength. She gives a half smile in thanks.

“You're not going to believe this,” Eddie tells Joe as he reaches him, a paper in his hands, “We've got the eyewitness' sketch of the robber from the bank job. If I didn't know better, I'd say that's Clyde Mardon. But that's impossible, he's dead, right?”

Joe stares at the sketch artist’s picture and the photo of Clyde Mardon and then drops it with a sigh, starring after Barry.

* * *

“I wasn't the only one affected by the particle accelerator explosion, was I?” Barry yells out as he steps in to S.T.A.R. Labs where Wells, Caitlin, and Cisco are pouring through data. They all freeze, looking to Wells to answer.

“We don't know for sure,” Wells finally admits, a heavy sigh that makes his entire body suddenly look tired.

“You said the city was safe, that there was no residual danger. But that's not true, so what really happened that night?” Barry’s voice getting faster and louder with hysteria. His eyes are hard as he asks his question. The air of a bundle of energy changing rapidly to electrically charged sharp danger.

“Well, the accelerator went active, we all felt like heroes, and then, it all went wrong. A dimensional barrier ruptured, unleashing unknown energies into our world, anti-matter, dark energy, X-elements.”

“Those are all theoretical.”

“And how theoretical are you? We've mapped dispersion throughout and around Central City but we have no way of knowing exactly what or who was exposed. We've been searching for other metahumans, like yourself.”

“Metahumans?”

“That's what we are calling them,” Caitlin replies.

“I saw one today. He's a bank robber, and he can control the weather,” an edge of craziness to his voice.

“This just keeps getting cooler,” Cisco laughs.

“This is not cool! All right? A man died,” wiping the smile from Cisco’s face, “Mardon must have gotten his powers the same way I did. From the storm cloud. He's still out there. We have to stop him before he hurts anyone else.” Barry turns, ready to go.

“Barry! That's a job for the police,” Wells tells him with calmness that Barry didn’t have and couldn’t understand.

“Yeah, I work for the police.”

“As a forensic assistant,” Barry turns with a glare. Another reminder of his helplessness not helping his mood.

“You're responsible for this. For him.”

“What's important is you! Not me. I lost everything. I lost my company. I lost my reputation. I lost my freedom. And then you broke your arm, and it healed in three hours. Inside your body, could be a map to a whole new world genetic therapy, vaccines, medicines, treasures, Barry. Deep within your cells, and we cannot risk losing everything because you wanna go out and play hero,” Wells’s voice rising in exasperation, “You're not a hero,” he finishes with a darkness to his voice, “You're just a young man who was struck by lightning.”

Barry’s eyes harden, filling with tears again. They roam over the occupants of the room. Wishing for one person, just one person in his life to be on his side. He turns with anger, stalking out the doors and leaving a silent room behind that was heavy with tension. In seconds he is running, racing across the city, trying to fight the tears that had filled too much for his eyes lids to carry, the burden too great as they wavered and threatened to fall.

* * *

 

**14 Years Ago**

Barry runs, his body threatening to give out. Sweat is dripping from all of his pores, his chest threatening to explode, his breath coming in gasps as if he was having an asthma attack.

He can see the lights up ahead, the cop cars surrounding his house. He races past them, somehow making it to the house with out anyone trying to stop him. His dad is mumbling while being carried out of the house by two cops, somewhat awkwardly, his hands behind his back.

“I didn't do this. I swear to God I didn't do this,” He’s hysterical as he is pushed down the front steps of his house.

“Dad!” He calls from the steps leading to the front of the house, “Why are they taking you?”

“Barry, don't go in the house!” His father cries. He moves frantically and tries to fight the cops in order to reach his son. Barry can see the shine of silver holding his father’s hands together behind him.

“Where's Mom?” he worries.

“What's gonna happen to my son?”

“Dad!”

“Barry!”

“Dad!”

“Stay out of the house!” His father calls as he is pushed in to the back of the cop car. “Barry!” His father tries again, but his son turns towards the house, taking the steps quickly to try and find his mother instead. Many cops pass by him, but none try to stop him.

Barry enters his house, glancing around at all the strange people. They are taking photos, notes, and things all from his house with gloved hands. There is broken glass and debris everywhere.

“Joe, you know these people?”

Barry steps into the living room, the last place he saw his mother. Joe, his best friend’s father is kneeling over a blue cloth in the center of the room. There’s an arm, a frighteningly familiar pale arm, sticking out from underneath the edge.

“My daughter's best friends with their kid.”

“I'm sorry.”

“Hmm,” Joe stands, moving away from the body. Barry stumbles forward, small enough that no one notices him until it’s too late. He has the cloth pulled away before someone finally steps up to take him away.

“Mom,” he calls, recognizing the face, but it was wrong. Not the face he remembers of his mother. This one is white, pale white like a ghost. A stark contrast against her dark lifeless red hair. Her eyes sunken in and glassy. Not with tears, but as if the color was drained from them. There is blood splattered under her chin. She doesn’t react, her body not moving, not even to breath.

“Barry,” Joe places a hand on his shoulder, kneeling down next to him.

“Mom!” Barry tries again, but she doesn’t move, doesn’t even blink. Joe throws the cloth back over her. Dread fills Barry, tears threatening to fall as reality begins to set in.

* * *

 

Barry shakes off the memory, still running. His tears are being pushed from his face by the force of the wind. He no longer feels the need to run away though. A new meaning has settled in instead. He has a place to go. There is something he needed. Someone he needed to speak to.

There was only one person in the world who could help him. Only one person who knew what he was going through. Only one person that would know what to do. He had to get to Starling City.

* * *

“So that's my story. I've spent my whole life searching for the impossible. Never imagining that I would become the impossible.” Barry finishes giving his play by play of the past day. A figure dressed in all green, looking out over the city. His body is angled away from Barry, but he is tuned into the young man, listening.

“So why come to me?” Oliver Queen says, “Something tells me you didn't just run 600 miles to say hi to a friend,” he smiles. An odd expression on his face when dressed as the Arrow. Though, he was secretly glad that Barry had run the 600 miles; however, a phone call would’ve worked just fine to let him and Felicity know that he was no longer in a coma and doing okay.

“All my life I've wanted to just do more. Be more. And now I am. And the first chance I get to help someone, I screw up,” Oliver rolls his eyes, a look of exasperation on his face. “What if Wells is right? What if I'm not a hero? What if I'm just some guy who was struck by lightning?”

“I don't think that bolt of lightning struck you, Barry. I think it chose you.”

“I'm just not sure I'm like you, Oliver. I don't know if I can be some vigilante.”

“You can be better. Because you can inspire people, in a way that I never could. Watching over your city like a guardian angel, making a difference saving people. In a flash.” Oliver turns, slipping his mask in place. The voice modulator turned on to distort his last words, “Take your own advice. Wear a mask.” Barry laughs at the jab, smiling at the fond memory from not so long ago, for him at least.

Oliver turns and runs for the building’s edge, leaping off in a swan dive. He turns, angling as he grabs an arrow and aims for the building. The end sticks and the cord pulls tight as it yanks Oliver up with a swing.

“Cool,” Barry says, watching him pull an amazing move that Barry thought could only be seen in the movies.

Oliver lands lightly on the edge of the building, hanging as he turns to watch Barry leave the city. There’s a blur of red running down the streets trailed by golden white lightning that flickers around him, leaving sparks and cracks of thunder behind.

“Cool,” Oliver calls with a smile before finishing his ascent and carrying on as the Arrow.

* * *

Barry stands in S.T.A.R. Labs, boxes of the cases he’s looked at in front of him, a few spread out on the table. The most important ones. Turns out, he didn’t just get super speed, he was able speed read too.

“I've been going over unsolved cases from the past 9 months, and there's been a sharp increase in unexplained deaths, and missing people. Your metahumans have been busy. Now, I'm not blaming you, I know you didn't mean for any of this to happen. I know you all lost something. But I need your help to catch Mardon, and anyone else out there like him. But I can't do it without you.”

Barry watches as Caitlin and Cisco make eye contact, a silent conversation happening between them. He can tell that Cisco is already in. The nodding, smiling, and sparkling eyes giving it away even before Barry had finished speaking. Caitlin looks less sure, but he can see her cave from just one look from Cisco.

“If we're gonna do this I have something that might help.”

Cisco is out the door leaving a fumbling Barry behind. Caitlin moves to follow as if its normal Cisco behavior, which, given the last 24 hours it shouldn’t surprise Barry if it is.

Cisco runs off towards his lab, spinning a mannequin around for Barry to see.

“Something I've been playing with. It's designed to replace the turnouts firefighters traditionally wear. I thought if S.T.A.R. Labs could do something nice for the community, maybe people wouldn't be so angry at Doctor Wells anymore.”

The suit is a deep solid red with strange armor padding. There’s little golden stripes running along the seems of the design that appear to look like lightning bolts.

“How is it gonna help me?” It’s a head to toe body suit, but at least it wasn’t skin tight. Well, at least it didn’t appear to be skin tight on the mannequin.

“It's made of a reinforced tri-polymer, it's heat and abrasive resistant, so it should withstand your moving at high-velocity speed. And the aerodynamic design should help you maintain control. Plus, it has built-in sensors, so we can track your vitals, and stay in contact with you from here.”

“Thanks. Now, how do we find Mardon?”

“I re-tasked S.T.A.R. Labs satellites to track meteorological abnormalities over Central City. We just got a ping,” Caitlin says with excitement in her voice for the first time in months. There’s a slight upwards turn to her lips as the adrenaline begins to take over. “Atmospheric pressure dropped 20 millibars in a matter of seconds. I've tracked it to a farm just west of the city.”

The beginning of something right blooms in Barry’s chest.

* * *

“I'm not saying Mardon is alive, but if he was, this is the last place him and his brother hid out,” Joe tells Eddie as they get out of the car. They are back at the barn where Joe lost his last partner. The barn the Mardon brothers took off in.

Eddie steps out, a strange smile on his face. He thinks that the West family is going insane, but he isn’t going to tell them that. It was bad enough that he was secretly dating his partners daughter. When that came out, which it will eventually, he would rather have Joe like him at least a little bit.

“Let's go,” Joe says with seriousness. The barn is bringing up old memories. The lose of his partner starting to wear on him as he brings his new partner here. He hopes that he is wrong, and that this is not a repeat of that night.

They pull their guns, entering the dust free barn with the lights on again. But this time, everything is different.

There is no car this time, no large item cloaked in a tarp, no particle accelerator. There is a lone man, sitting on a stool instead. The detectives aim their guns at his back, tensed and ready.

“Mardon? On your feet. Hands on your head,” Joe calls, Eddie’s eyes widening.

“You got me,” Mardon laughs, not turning around. Joe glances to his partner who nods that he is ready. He hesitates, worry for his partner. The Mardon brothers had already killed his last one. Joe puts his gun away, grabbing his cuffs.

“The night of the storm, after S.T.A.R. Labs blew. After our plane went down, and I woke up on the ground, alive. When I saw what I could do, I understood. I am God.”

“Shut the hell up!” Joe says, stepping forward as Mardon stands.

“Turn around,” Eddie adds.

He doesn’t, instead he pushes his hands down. Wind bursts from them and sends the detectives flying back in to the wall. Eddie gets knocked out, his body slumping over, gun long forgotten. The wind picks up, whipping around them.

“You think your guns can stop God?!” Mardon screams as he finally turns around.

“Why in the hell would God need to rob banks?” Joe asks bewildered.

“You're right. I've been thinking too small.”

Shit, is all Joe thinks as Mardon looks to the sky, a tornado forming around him. Thinking fast, he reaches over to Eddie, determined not to lose another partner, especially not here, not to the Mardon brothers.

They are stumbling out of the barn when they get flown in to the side of their car, the tornado following them and forcing them back against it.

Joe thinks for a moment that this is the end. That he not only got his partner killed, but himself as well. At least Iris has Barry back so she won’t be alone in the world. But things between Barry and him where still rough. Joe had tried to call, but it wasn’t until he heard the dial tone that he remembered that Barry did not have a phone yet.

There’s a tornado coming for him, ripping the barn apart as it passes by. He sees a giant piece of the barn siding headed straight for them. It’s large enough to impale and most likely will kill him. He closes his eyes, waiting for the impact that will take them both. He sends a pray to the sky, but the hit never comes.

The barn siding piece is on the ground a few yards away. A man dressed in red rising beneath it. Barry yanks the mask away from his face, unable to see clearly and breath with it on.

“Barry, Barry, this thing is getting closer. Wind speeds are 200 miles per hour, and increasing. Barry, can you hear me?” Cisco echos through the comms.

“Yeah. Loud and clear,” he calls, a little winded from all the running he did and a little sore from the impact. There was probably going to be some bruising, but it was most likely already healing.

They hadn’t run any test on his healing factor yet. Not that Barry was looking forward to purposely hurting himself just to see how long it would take to heal and if there would be any evidence of the injury.

Now that he is here though, he’s worried that he made a mistake. The spinning body of wind in front of him is intimidating.

“If it keeps up, this could become an F5 tornado.”

“And it's headed towards the city. How do I stop it?” The comms are silent, dread filling Barry, “Guys? What if I unravel it?”

“How the hell are you gonna do that?” Caitlin asks.

“I'll run around it in the opposite direction, cut off its legs.”

“He'd have to clock 700 miles per hour to do that,” Cisco adds.

“Your body may not be able to handle those speeds. You'll die,” fear dripping in to Caitlin’s voice at the thought of losing another friend. She’d only really known him for a few hours, but already she felt close to young man.

“I have to try,” Barry runs, a golden blur racing around the tornado. He pushes, running as fast as his legs can go.

“The suit's holding up,” Cisco laughs out of unexpected excitement.

“But he's not,” Caitlin adds, watching as his vitals start to drop.

“He can do it. I know he can do it.”

Mardon sees the newcomer, sending a bolt of lightning towards him. It hits Barry and sends him flying away from the tornado. He tumbles and rolls into a mud bank, breathless. Something feels different though. His body feels alive. Like very molecule is aching to burst as if Barry is suddenly full of energy that he can’t contain.

“He's too strong,” doubt clouding his mind as he gets distracted by the foreign feeling.

“It's time to think big,” Mardon echoes from inside the whirling column of dark air. It’s twisting gets more chaotic, getting stronger and larger.

“You can do this, Barry,” Caitlin and Cisco startle at Wells’s voice, not having heard him wheel in to the cortex. “You're right, I am responsible for all this. So many people have been hurt, because of me, and when I looked at you, all I saw was a potential victim of my hubris, and yes, I created this madness, but you, Barry, you can stop it. You can do this now, run! Barry, run!”

And so he does, he races around the tornado, willing his legs to move fast. Willing them to push harder. Sparks of golden white lightning echo around him as he runs. The blur of red and gold flickering with every step he took. He screams as he pushes with his last bit of energy.

He falls to the ground the moment the tornado dissipates, breathless. The force causing him to roll, still not able to stop without crashing in to anything.

“Barry?” Caitlin calls timidly. Barry rips off his cowl to ease the constriction around his throat.

“Hey!” Mardon calls from behind him. He raises a gun to Barry. “I didn't think there was anyone else like me.” He cocks his gun, prepared to fire.

“I'm not like you. You're a murderer.” Mardon smiles, his gun steadying as he aims. A shot echoes across the empty lot, quickly followed by another. Barry steadies himself expecting bursts of pain from the hit, but they never come. Mardon crumples to the ground instead, lifeless. Two bullet holes in his chest.

Barry spins around, seeing Joe running with his gun.

“Barry?” Fear inching it’s way in to Joe’s voice.

“It's over. I'm ok.” He breathes a sigh of relief, tension in his shoulders leaving as exhaustion starts to fill him. Joe runs to him, stopping just in front where he kneels, breathing heavily. There’s shock on his face and tears in his eyes. Memories of the early fight coming to the forefront of his mind but at the moment Barry doesn’t care and shakes it off. He’s only glad to see that Joe is okay and unharmed.

* * *

“What you can do,” Joe starts from where him and Barry are leaning against his car, “it was the lighting bolt?” His voice frighteningly unsteady.

“More or less,” Barry sighs, his guard still up. Really it was the combination of lightning and the wave of energy coming from the Particle Accelerator explosion.

“I'm sorry, Barry. I'm sorry I didn't believe you. And I called you crazy for chasing the impossible. But you really did see something that night your mom died. And your dad is innocent.” Barry’s heart clenches at the force of his foster father’s statement, tears threatening to spill over. “I need you to promise me something,” Joe steps in front of Barry, his eyes boring in to his intently, “I don't want you telling Iris about anything you can do. Any of it. I want her safe. Promise me.”

“Yeah,” Barry nods. He swallows down the dread. He knows that keeping secrets from Iris was never easy and he was never able to do it for long. 

* * *

Barry waits in the Central City General phone booth for his father to come great him. He’s lost in thought and startles out of it as the buzzing noise of the jail’s door opens, his dad stepping through. Barry smiles, his eyes turning to relief at seeing his father sit down across from him, grabbing the phone so they can talk.

“Hey, Slugger,” his father greets him with fondness.

“You've been calling me that since I was eleven. Funny thing is, I finally got into a fight today.”

“You just got out of a coma. I'm not sure you should be picking fights.” Barry looks down, slightly ashamed because his father was right, “Hey. Did you win?”

“Yeah. I did. You didn't kill Mom. You know I know that, right?” His eyes shinning with sadness, his voice quivering.

“You believing me, is all I need,” his father speaks with tears in his own eyes. The laughter lines that were once present on his fathers face are all gone now. A weariness filling his bones.  
  
“You're not gonna be in here much longer. Whoever killed Mom, whatever killed her, I think I finally have a way to find them. To stop them.”

“Barry, we've talked about this. It's time to let it go. You've got to stop worrying about me. And live your life.”

“For the first time, I feel like I finally can. The truth is, ever since the night Mom died, I've been stuck in one place. Missed out on a lot of things. But I'm different now. I made some new friends.”

“ _Why is it shaped like a lightning bolt?” Caitlin asks Cisco as she steps up to where he is tinkering with the suit. He’s placing new additions into it, upgrading it for Barry instead of for firefighters._

_“So it's not boring,” he answer’s as if it should be obvious._

“They're helping me find my way.”

_Oliver watches over Felicity’s shoulder, the news report from Central City replaying the scene at the barn. Reports were flying in of a large tornado appearing out of nowhere and then disappearing just as fast._

_“Way to go Barry,” Felicity states with a fond smile. Oliver’s stoic facade cracks._

“And finally move forward.”

_Cass walks through the empty halls of S.T.A.R. Labs with quiet footfalls. The shadows seem to draw towards her, hiding her movements down the hall. The lights pulling away as if in fear. There’s soft voices up ahead and a light shinning from the room where Barry is kept. Her heart begins to beat at a steadily higher tempo than before._

“Remember when you wanted me to change my name? So I wouldn't have to deal with people knowing you're my dad. I'm glad they know. I'm so proud, to be your son,” happy tears rolling down both of their cheeks.

“I love you, Son.”

“I love you too, Dad.”

Barry places his hand on the glass, his father doing the same.

My name is Barry Allen. And I am the fastest man alive. A friend recently gave me the idea for a new name. And something tells me, it's gonna catch on.

* * *

Wells moves slowly along the hallway. His wheels making a consistent annoying buzz as they move along. It covers soft noise that he would have heard otherwise. He pauses in front of a wall, seemingly lost in thought.

He glances along the halls, searching the shadows for any presence. Thinking he was alone, he presses his hand against the wall and watches as the wall ripples away to reveal a room. The room is empty except for a strange podium in the end. Wells rolls inside, pausing as the wall behind him ripples back in place to seal him inside.

He misses the eyes shinning in the darkest shadow that track his movements.

With a heavy sigh, he steps out from the wheel chair. His legs are unsteady. IT takes a moment to adjust to the familiar sensation of standing before he turns to drop his glasses behind him in his chair. He has never needed them to see.

He takes a deep breath and pushes for his first step. His legs move with ease, feeling and sensations returning with each step. He gets stronger the closer he gets to the podium. When he deems himself close enough, he places a hand over the podium.

A bright white light appears, resolving into an image of a newspaper for The Central City Citizen. The date reads April 25, 2024. The Headline for the day: Flash Missing: Vanishes in Crisis.

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll try to update as soon as I can, but it does take a long time just to complete one chapter.


End file.
